Prosecutor’s office checks words of Mikhalok: Lukashenka is thief and liar

The prosecutor’s office has given experts 3 months to establish whether the musician had insulted Lukashenka in his speech.

The prosecutor’s office has sent the speech of Syarhei Mikhalok (Sergei Mikhalok) for experts’ examination. And the investigation has been extended for 3 more months. Over this period language experts are to establish whether the frontman of Lyapis Trubetskoy band had insulted the president or not.

“The lawyer with whom Syarhei Mikhalok had signed a contract, was informed that the term of the examination of the prosecutor office’s examination had been extended for 3 months. It was to be finished after the 20th of October. The linguistic expert examination has been ordered,” the spokesperson of Lyapis Trubetskoy band, Dzmitry Bezkaravajny said to Euroradio.

Alyaksandr Bachyla, investigator of the prosecutor’s office of Central district of Minsk, who had summoned the musician and recently stated that he likes songs by Lyapis, this time refused to talk:

- No comments!

- At what stage the investigation is now?

- The answer will be the same.

- Could you at least explain what expression or speech is meant?

- Open the internet and you will see.

- That is, it is an interview which is discussed by everyone?

- Yeah.

- If Mikhalok returns, would his rights be limited in any way?

- No comments!

- Will he be put on the wanted list?

- No comment!

The Institute of Language and Literature of the Academy of Science, which is as a rule makes language expert examinations, has not received an inquiry from the prosecutor’s office yet. The director of the institution, Alyaksandr Lukashanets, has heard about the case of Mikhalok. But he said he is not going to judge the words of the Lyapis frontman.

“In case an official inquiry is received by me, the answer would depend on how the question would be formulated. That is why I do not want my opinion as an expert to be mentioned somewhere before that,” the linguist explains.

Syarhei Mikhalok is not going to return to Belarus so far, and he is settling in his Moscow flat:

“I have returned in Moscow not because I fear this judicial examination. I have stayed in Moscow as I want to stay available for duty. Our gig schedule is mapped out for half a year ahead, and that’s the main thing. It is my calling, my mission. Experts in law have told me that if I return to Minsk, most likely I could be demanded to give a written undertaking not to leave the place, and even my passport could be seized. And as you know, concerts are a sacred thing, they cannot be cancelled. So I am going to focus on my gigs schedule, I will be busy with that, and let the officials do what they want to do.