Ukrainian Journalist Sharojko’s Case Classified As Secret In Belarus

The Supreme Court of Belarus sentenced Ukrainian journalist Pavel Sharojko to "more than 8 years of imprisonment".

Ambassador of Ukraine to Belarus Igor Kizima announced that before the start of the Minsk Dialogue forum.

According to Kizima, now Sharojko is in the KGB jail. The other day he was visited by the Ukrainian consul, the convict did not complain about the conditions of detention.

The press secretary of the Belarusian Association of Journalists, Barys Haretski, notes in the interview to Radio Racyja the closeness of this case to civil society:

– Everything is absolutely classified as secret. There are scraps of information that someone handed Sharojko some documents. Unfortunately, none of the Belarusian journalists can say what, in fact, happened to Sharojko: whether he did something criminal or not. Therefore, from the very beginning, we called for an open trial to make it clear whether there was some sort of guilt or not. We are very concerned that it did not happen. It is not known exactly what charges were heard there.

Correspondent of the Public National Television and Radio Company of Ukraine Pavel Sharojko was detained by KGB officers in Minsk on October 25 last year. He was accused of creating a "spy network" in Belarus, among the citizens of the country "who, for a monetary reward, carried out his assignments for gathering intelligence information in the military and political sphere." A criminal case against Sharojko was opened under Article 358 of the Criminal Code – for espionage.

Sharojko’s trial was held in the Supreme Court of Belarus in February, but the verdict has not been published so far. Ukrainian experts suggest that Pavel Sharojko was detained in Belarus in response to the detention of the Belarusian citizen Yury Palitsik in Chernigov. He is suspected of collecting secret information in Ukraine in favor of a foreign state.