Yury Lyavonau: EU shouldn’t trust biased “expert’s evaluation”

Political prisoner Yury Lyavonau calls on the European Union to carry out independent investigation of the case of Vaukavysk entrepreneurs arrested this February.

The statement by Yury Lyavonau was sent to the Embassy of Sweden, the country holding the EU presidency, and to the Delegation of the European Commission to Belarus.

The entrepreneur believes that criminal persecution of Mikalai Autukhovich, Uladzimir Asipenka, and himself is connected with the arrests of 2006.

“Since February 8 till August 8, 2009, I was in jail (pre-trial detention facility #1 of Minsk). I was accused of intentional destruction of property of officials. Mikalai Autukhovich and Uladzimir Asipenka, arrested with me, faced the same charges. The victims of the crime don’t have claims to us, the guilty have been convicted and recovered the damage.

Since July 6, 2006, till February 25, 2008, I was serving punishment in a prison in Hrodna and then in penal colony #2 in Babruisk in accordance with a judgement of the Kastrychitski district court of Hrodna. Autukhovich and I were accused of committing economic crimes.

I think these two cases are interrelated; moreover, these cases are a continuation of a number if economic proceedings heard in the Supreme Economic Court of Belarus and the Hrodna Region Economic Court in 2004–2005, where Autukhovich and I defended our right to use pioneer methods of running business. So, the persecuting and ruining the business of Autukhovich and me started with tax audits of our enterprises in the middle of 2003 and lasted for 18 months and were closely related to Presidential Decree#4 restricting business activity,” the political prisoner says.

Yury Lyavonau doesn’t see sense to gain justice in Belarusian courts.

“I don’t see sense to go to the constitutional bodies of Belarus, because I sent about 40 complaints to different agencies over the past period, Autukhovich made the same number of complaints, but we haven’t received any answer that could confute our arguments with reference to concrete norms of the Belarusian law. I have these documents and can show them to any official. Moreover, I have a conclusion of an expert commission, consisted of specialists from six Belarusian ministries and governmental agencies, made in 2005 in compliance with all requirement of the Belarusian legislation, but the Kastrychnitski district court of Hrodna didn’t take into account this document in 2006,” the entrepreneur writes.

The political prisoner draws attention to the visit of German expert Martin Finke to Minsk, who carried out “expert’s evaluation” of the case of the entrepreneurs from Vaukavysk by order of the Belarusian authorities.

“I learnt from the mass media that Martin Finke, a German specialist in criminal law, got acquainted with our case on the invitation of the Belarusian authorities on June 10–12. His conclusion was based on the materials of the prosecution without our participation. The Belarusian authorities used his conclusion to pursue political aims – it was sent to the MEPs and to the embassies of the EU member-states in Belarus.

Manipulation of the opinion of European politicians on our case by the authorities put implementation of the Eastern Partnership programme under threat. Having signed the Prague Declaration, Belarus took obligations to build partnership based on the rule of law and respect for human rights and basic freedoms.

I join the suggestion of the entrepreneurs to us on carrying out an expert’s evaluation within the frames of the multilateral cooperation of the Eastern Partnership programme in our criminal case and the Case of 14, under which “Young Front” activist Artsyom Dubski was sentenced to imprisonment. The motives for prosecution are our active public position, our protest against restrictions of business activity, and fighting corruption.

For well-known reasons, the people of Belarus don’t have access to the European Court of Human Rights. We hope the European integration programmes, in which our country takes part, can help us to defend our right for fair trial. This will allow using the effectiveness of law serving in the interests of every Belarusian, but the authorities who use help of biased experts,” Yury Lyavonau says.

We remind that Yury Lyavonau and other Vaukavysk entrepreneurs Mikalai Autukhovich and Uladzimir Asipenka were arrested on February 8. On February 18, the entrepreneurs were charged under article 218 of the Criminal Code (intentional damage to or destruction of property of citizens). On June 23, a criminal case under article 359 of the Criminal Code (a terroristic act) in the form of preparation (article 13) was instigated against Autukhovich and “other persons”, the Ministry of Internal Affairs reported.

Lyavonau was released on August 8. Investigative activities against him were stopped. The Vaukavysk entrepreneurs are expected to stand trial in November.

Human rights activists consider the detained to be political prisoners drawing attention to the fact that Autukhovich and Lyavonau were convicted before and recognized prisoners of conscience by the international community.