Does OSCE office work for dictator?

The German expert of criminal law and law of criminal procedure Martin Finke who issued a conclusion on the case of businessmen from Vaukavysk, visited Minsk on invitation of the head of the head of the OSCE Office in Minsk Hans-Johan Schmidt.

An interview with Martin Finke who was in Minsk on June 9-10, was published by Nasha Niva newspaper.

Mister Finke, who invited you to Belarus?

- The OSCE.

Who contacted with you concerning this case?

- Mister Ambassador.

Was it the OSCE Ambassador Hans-Johan Schmidt?

- Yes.

With whom have you met in Belarus in the framework of the expert examination?

- I was there for one or tow days only. It’s true, for two days, and I met with workers of the Foreign Ministry only.

Have you seen the attorney?

- No.

Have you met with Autukhovich?

- No.

Did you want to meet him?

- Why not? I did.

But you haven’t had an opportunity?

- As far as I know, the government had asked to invite an international expert, and they invited me. They took me to the Foreign Ministry to meet with those who investigate this case.

And I have issued an expert’s opinion, about which I certainly cannot tell anything. They told me the whole storey and answered all the questions. They gave me all the materials I was interested in.

Thus, are you satisfied with your cooperation with the Interior Ministry?

- No! I certainly was limited by the information provided by the investigators, and by the documents I had been given.

Was this information sufficient?

- Certainly, this work was based upon the information provided. The work was in finding mistakes. From our point of view, there are problems with the Belarusian law: criminal law, the law of criminal procedure. But it bears no relation to the case, and to the rules of law used in the framework of this process. And of course this case is dragged out for such a long time because of that, but there is nothing unusual in that. This problem (dragging out a process) exists in our country as well, and by the way, according to our laws, this duration is not considered excessive.

It means that all papers in Autukhovich’s case are in order, but is everything in order with the case itself?

- I cannot answer, as it would be a violation of the Belarusian law.

Did you make analogous expert’s examinations in other countries before?

- Yes, a lot of them.

Could you compare this case with others?

- Belarus lags behind Kyrgyzstan a little in reforming criminal proceedings. But what does it mean to compare? After all, the questions studies by us by order of the Council of Europe, the European Union, are almost the same always, and the local Belarusian colour is not the reason. They are more or less the same issues of human rights standards.

Could you say about your conclusions after studying the case of Autukhovich?

- No.

Some human rights activists say that Autukhovich’s case is politically motivated, and he is a political prisoner.

- Yes, I know. But certainly nobody knows what “a political prisoner” is. For instance, Amnesty International defines this term very narrowly, and now I simply do not know according to what definition they say about that. I would like to add that I had never read about this case in the German press. That is why I arrived to Minsk absolutely unbiased. I had no notion of this case.

Why have the OSCE invited you as an expert?

- I am almost the only person studying law of criminal procedure in post-Soviet countries, and I speak some Russian.

But your area of practice is Russia, not Belarus.

- But now I am studying the law of criminal procedure in Turkmenistan, and before that I held courses for judges in Bishkek. I also worked in Georgia and Armenia, as in all these countries one can work in Russian.

Have you ever been to Belarus?

- It was my third visit now. I visited Minsk during an international conference on issues of access to justice, and first time I was here in Soviet time, in a train from Moscow to Vilnius.

Doesn’t it seem to you that your expert’s conclusions could contradict your academic status, as it is based on an opinion of only one side? Some observers have a feeling that you cooperate with the Belarusian government.

- Really? (Laughs in surprise). I had a task from the OSCE, and I have nothing to do with the Belarusian government.

A note by www.charter97.org: Mikalai Autukhovich and two more activists of the movement of businessmen from Vaukavysk, Uladzimir Asipenka and Yury Lyavonau, were detained on February 8 with the approval of the prosecutor of the Hrodna region. On February 18, the three were charged under article 218 of the Criminal Code (intentional damage to or destruction of property of citizens).