New case opened against political prisoner Yury Rubtsou

A criminal case against Homel activist for evasion from serving the sentence has been opened.

Today Yury Rubtsou, a political prisoner, was ordered to take his things, he was taken by a police car away from the territory of the special correctional labour facility in the village of Kuplin, Pruzhany district, Radio Svaboda informs.

Just a few minutes before Rubtsou was taken away from the correctional facility, activists came there to have a meeting with him.

“We saw how he was placed into a police car and taken away with his things,” a filmmaker Volha Mikalaichyk said.

Meanwhile an activist of “European Belarus” Leanid Kulakou informed that the political prisoner was taken to the police department of Pruzhany.

“Rubtsou was taken to the police department of Pruzhany, and we were not allowed to enter it. We were told some investigative experiment with his participation was to be held there,” he said.

According to the latest reports of Volha Mikalaichyk, Yury Rubtsou was left in the district Investigative Committee, and the police car which had brought him from Kuplin, has left.

“Policemen told that Rubtsou was to stay in the Investigative Committee, as a criminal case had been opened against him there,” Mikalaichyk said.

At 3.10 p.m. journalists were able to reach Yury Rubtsou on the phone. He informed:

“Yes, it’s true, I am in the Investigative Committee. They are trumping up a case on charges relating Article 415 of the Criminal Code – for evasion of serving the sentence. I plead not guilty, I demand to invite an independent lawyer. They offer me “their” lawyer, but I do not agree.”

Yury Rubtsou may face up to 3 years of deprivation of freedom under Article 415 of the Criminal Code.

We remind that an activist from Homel Yury Rubtsou was sentenced to a year and a half of corrective labour for alleged insult of a judge of Savetsku district court Kiryl Palulekh. Since the end of 2014 Yury Rubtsou had been serving the sentence in the village of Kuplin, Pruzhany district.