Political Prisoner Mikhail Zhamchuzhny Successfully Achieves Transfer To Remand Prison In Vitsebsk

A preliminary investigation into his case has started over numerous applications on his part.

First, Mikhail Zhamchuzhny was transferred from the Horki penal colony to the Mahiliou prison, and then the man was sent to the remand prison in Vitsebsk. Vitsebsk human rights activist Leanid Svetsik has reported this to the website palitviazni.info.

“Over numerous applications, a preliminary investigation into my cases has started,” Mikhail Zhamchuzhny writes. “I am talking about a possible total acquittal”.

Since December 23, Mikhail Zhamchuzhny has been in the punitive confinement in the Horki penal colony #9, but the last letters from the political prisoner came to Leanid Svetsik already from Mahiliou and Vitsebsk.

“Now I am in the Mahiliou prison, waiting for the transportation to the Vitsebsk remand prison #2,” Mikhail wriote in the first letter. “A preliminary investigation into my cases has finally started, after my numerous applications and complaints to various offices starting from the Investigatory Committee ending with the Presidential Administration.

An investigator summoned me for an interrogation, this may possibly refer to my total acquittal under all three sentences. I will try to use this situation as much as I can, but I’m afraid I will not be able to do this, given the prison term that I have left. It’s about a year.”

According to Leanid Svetsik, the preliminary investigation will be carried out by the Investigatory Committee Department in the Vitsebsk Region. It seems Zhamchuzhny managed to prove that the previous investigation had been conducted in violation of procedural laws.

“Zhamchuzhny sent the second letter already from Vitsebsk,” the human rights activist notes. “He writes that, compared to the Horki penal colony, and the Mahiliou prison, the confinement conditions in the Vitsebsk remand prison are much better. He is alone in the cell, upon his own request. Mikhail doesn’t inform how long he will stay in the remand prison, but the situation has changed, and it makes him feel more vigorous. In the Horki colony, he hardly saw people, as he constantly was either in the cell-type premises, or in the punishment cell. It is very hard to endure such isolation when you have no one to say a word with.”

Mikhail Zhamchuzhny also wrote that the Horki colony administration issued over 70 violations of the regime with regard to him recently, for the refusal to go to the brigade, where the prisoners with the so-called “low status” served punishment.

***

Founder of the Platform Innovation Mikhail Zhamchuzhny was sentenced to 6 years of imprisonment in a reinforced-security penal colony by the Vitsebsk City Court in July 2015. On October 23, the Board on Criminal Cases of the Supreme Court considered his cassational appeal, and imposed a stricter punishment on Zhamchuzhny - 6 years and a half in prison.

He was hound guilty of having committed the crimes referred to in Article 376 (part 1 and 2), 16 (part 5), 375 (part 1), and 431 (part 1 and 2): incitement to deliberate dissemination of information that constitutes a service secret; illegal purchase and selling of a special technical device, aimed at secret receipt of information, also repeatedly; giving bribe, and giving bribe repeatedly.

Mikhail Zhamchuzhny has been recognized as a political prisoner by the Belarusian human rights defenders.