New Life" church pastor faces imprisonment for "land damaging"

On May 6, 10 officials arrived to the building of the church . They were headed by the chairman of the Natural resources and environmental protection committee of Minsk city executive committee.

The pastor of Minsk-based "New Life" church Vyachaslau Hancharnka faces imprisonement for land damage. BelaPAN was informed about that by the lawyer of the congregation Syarhei Lukanin.

As said by him, on May 6 more than 10 officials headed by the chairman of the Natural resources and environmental protection committee of Minsk city executive committeeAlyaksandr Baravikou. Earlier representatives of the nature protection agency brought a suit against the church for more than 249 mln Br for alleged contamination of the territory of the church by oil products, the lawyer said. As said by him, making a lawn for a playground near the church was considered by the officials as "damaging the topsoil crop land". "Besides, the congregation was charged with making a car parking and access road. After the territory measurement the visitors went away without takin any formal notes", Lukanin said.

As the lawyer continued, the officials did not reacted to the arguments that the parking area and the road existed long before the congregation bought the former cow shed from Kalinin kolkhoz (collective farm). "Baravikou offered to express all these arguments in the court. Brushing aside charges of being biased, the official told that the church is not the only legal entity for which the ecological agency has claims. As an example the chairman of the committee names Minsk motor plant, which had been sued and charged 15 mln Br for land damaging. However Baravikou hasn't explained in which way the church could cause damage for a sum which is almost 17 times more than the entire entreprise," Lukanin said.

As said by him, in the end of the conversation Baravikou advised to think over by which measure land damaging on an especially large scale could be punished. Under Article 249 of the Criminal Code land damaging is punished by deprivation of freedom for up to 5 years. "Thus, he church faces several trials, the first of them is to start on May 12," the lawyer said.

On this day the case of enforcing more than 249 mln Br from "New Life" church is to be started in the Economical Court of Minsk. The action was initiated by the Natural resources and environmental protection committee.

In the end of the last year members of the committee found traces of oil products in soil samples taken on the traffic area of the road near the building of the church, and interpreted that as contamination of environment. As stated by Lukanin, when taking soil samples, there were no attesting witnesses and representatives of the public. The territory near the church was earlier used by Kalinin kolkhoz for farm production, and later an unsanctioned industrial waste dump with parts of broken cars was situated there.