Aliaksandr Burakou: Brutal raid during Mijatovic's visit looks strange

The case fell apart, but an independent journalist was issued a maximum fine for working for the foreign media.

Mahilou-based freelance journalist Aliaksandr Burakou spoke to charter97.org about the trial, the logic of prosecutors and the expert examination of his computer.

– What do you think about the court decision?

– It would be funny to say that the process was fair. It was obvious for all participants (there were 15 people on one side, a lawyer, a judge and I) that the charge against me had no grounds and proofs.

– Did you try to do anything during the trial? Was it successful?

– It happened so that I put many questions to witnesses. None of them answered them. My lawyer, who came from Minsk, explained in details that only a company can be charged with that offence, but an individual, a journalist cannot be charged.

– Six million is a big sum of money for the fabricated case.

– I talked to many people about the trial, and all of them were surprised to learn that no proofs were presented, but I was issued the maximum fine, 40 penalty units. By the way, it is the biggest fine for today. No one has been fined 6 million before.

We understood at the end of the trial that the case fell apart, but then a sort of a farce began. The judge came in and read from a sheet of paper that Aliaksandr Burakou was found guilty and fined 40 penalty units. The jaws of everyone present dropped, but it wasn't a big surprise, because we expected a guilty verdict. The fact that it took two days to hear an administrative case promised nothing good. The judge had to adjourn the trial, because it was obvious that she was not able to prove my guilt.

– The raid on your flat and the seizure of your computer happened during a visit of Dunja Mijatovic, the OSCE Representative on Freedom of Media. Doesn't it look strange?

– Yes, it was very strange to see that Dunja Mijatovic, who was officially invited to Minsk, met with officials and made a statement that everything was good in Belarus and all ministries were cooperative. Next day, she was to meet with representatives of the Belarusian Association of Journalists, and the police raided and searched my home in the morning. I didn't believe my eyes when I saw them.

– Did the OSCE representative react to that?

– The website of Deutsche Welle published Dunja Mijatovic's comment on my case, in which she said she would keep an eye on the trial on October 7-8. I mentioned it in the court. We printed that page and showed it to the judge.

– Did you hope for a positive outcome?

– We had a hope before the break that I could be found not guilty. But when the judge came in after the break, the very expression on her face showed I would be fined. The judge sometimes looked confused when she saw that the evidence by the police officers could not prove anything. The case consists of 120 pages. Even the judge said it contained many materials that had no relation to the case.

– What did they try to find on your computer?

– I was charged with writing an article for Deutsche Welle about smugglers. When they began to hear materials of the case, it was figured out that my computer had been disassembled. They checked its parts, removed the hard drive and connected it to another computer to carry out an examination. Experts were ordered to find files with the key words “Deutsche Welle”, “money”, “foreign financing”, “fees”. The judge noticed that they were not ordered to look for the word “smuggler”. They were not looking for the article. They were looking for something else. They didn't find the text that was published by Deutsche Welle. Nothing was proved. The search warrants for my flat and my parents' flat were signed by the city prosecutor. But when we compared the two documents, we so that the signatures were different. One of them was forged. But the judge found excuses again.