Prosecutor asks three years in prison for Aleh Surhan

Hearing of Aleh Surhan’s criminal case ended in the Kastrychnitski district court of Vitsebsk. Surhan was detained on suspicion of hanging out a national white-red-white flag.

Aleh Surhan is accused of having attacked militiaman Syarhei Dudkevich. According to Radio Svaboda, judge Yauheni Burunau is supposed to deliver his judgement at 10 a.m. on Friday February 19.

The prosecutor said at today’s trial Aleh Surhan should be sentenced to 3 years in a maximum security penal colony, as the defendant had two previous criminal convictions.

Militiaman Syarhei Dudkevich, who says the defendant attacked him and bit his finger of the left hand in a militia car, demands to pay not 1 million rubles of compensation for moral damage, but 10 million.

The militiaman said earlier he was afraid to catch hepatitis, because he thinks Aleh Surhan has this disease. Now he says he had to move to a lower position with lower salary.

Aleh Surhan friends think these words prove that command finds guilt of the militiaman, though prosecutors refused to instigate a criminal case against the law-enforcement officer for misuse of power.

Barrister Vyachaslau Praskalovich said evidence of the militiamen was lies, because it contradicted evidence of witnesses. Controversial medical reports are also doubtful: one says the wound on the finger was 2 to 3 millimetres, another says it was 5 to 25 millimetres.

Vyachaslau Praskalovich thinks the criminal case against Aleh Surhan was instigated after a national white-red-white flag had been hung out in Frunze Avenue in Vitsebsk on September 3. It was decided to detain Surhan after the incident, but he demanded to attach the things he had. Surhan wanted to prevent possibly provocations. However, militiamen refused to do this and interpreted actions of the detainee as disobedience.

According to “victim” Syarhei Dudkevich, Aleh Surhan was “rubbing his cheeks against the floor” and “banging his head against the panels of the car”, so afflicting bodily harm to himself.

Defendant Aleh Surhan and his brother, a Young Belarus activist Taras Surhan, who saw the moment of detention, deny evidence of Syarhei Dudkevich. Taras Surhan showed photos he made with his cell phone proving Aleh Surhan had bruises on his face and there were traces of handcuffs on is wrists.