Mother of death row inmate appeals to Constitutional Court to examine criminal procedure regulations

The mother of Uladzislaw Kavalyow, who together with his friend Dzmitry Kanavalaw was sentenced to death over the April 2011 deadly subway bomb attack, has asked the Constitutional Court to examine whether the country’s criminal procedure regulations comply with the constitution and international standards.

Lyubow Kavalyow filed the appeal on February 1, requesting the Court to issue its opinion on the national regulations that do not prohibit the execution of a death row inmate before the UN Human Rights Committee issues a decision on his or her communication.

The woman told BelaPAN that she feared that her 26-year-old son would be executed before the UN Human Rights Committee’s ruling.

She said that she had also filed a complaint with the Prosecutor General’s Office against the administration of the Committee for State Security (KGB)’s detention center, which she noted had failed to pass her two proxies drawn up by the young man to enable her to represent his interests on the outside.

The mother received the most recent letter from Mr. Kavalyow on January 30 after a break of more than three weeks. “It was optimistic,” said the woman. He said that he had not been writing letters to the family because of the need to study the records of the trial, she added.

As a result of their trial that lasted more than two months and ended on November 30, Messrs. Kavalyow and Kanavalaw were convicted of the two 2005 bomb explosions in Vitsyebsk, the bomb attack that occurred during an open-air Independence Day concert in Minsk in July 2008 and the April 11, 2011 subway bombing that killed 15 people and injured more than 200. Mr. Kanavalaw was found guilty of perpetrating them, while Mr. Kavalyow of acting as his accomplice, as well as of failure to report the crimes or their preparation.