Alyaksandr Kruty: We have punitive psychiatry like in USSR

The father of Inessa Krutaya, a woman injured by the metro blast, wants to bring to responsibility the officials, who sent him to psychiatric hospital.

”I had six trials in my criminal case. I wasn't allowed to visit any of them. It's needless to say that the judicial system in Belarus doesn't work. It contradicts article 60 of the Constitution and common sense,” Alyaksandr Kruty, the father of metro bombing victim Inessa Krutaya, told charter97.org. He was arrested after his critical remarks during the trial over Dzmitry Kanavalau and Uladzislau Kavalyou.

Kruty says he was transferred from prison to hospital on the first anniversary of the blast:

“I had been in jail on Valadarski Street until April 11, 2012. Maybe it wasn't a coincidence that I was taken to psychiatric hospital in Navinky on the first anniversary of the bombing. I was kept under custody for 7 month, though one can be jailed only for 6 months for disorderly conduct. So, I spent in custody more time than my article prescribes. In January or February, a man wanted to cut his throat in my ward, but I stopped him, because there could have been two dead men in the ward. Another guy in another ward finally cut his throat.”

The man is confident the document presented at the trial don't have legal force:

“No documents in this criminal case met the requirements of the Criminal Procedure Code. They should have been recognised as the documents without legal force. Under law, there were no documents to start criminal proceedings against me. The charge has no relation to the case. The matter with the polyclinic was absolutely different. Conflicts and mockery in the polyclinic have been continuing since 2000. I can prove it.”

Psychiatry in Belarus is used like in the Soviet Union to suppress dissent, the father of Inessa Krutaya says:

“The situation with our courts resembles the year 1939, when Lavrentiy Beria was in charge of psychiatric hospital. Psychiatry has been used as a state institution to suppress people since those times. They treated me normally in hospital, if I may say so. But the very fact of staying in psychiatric hospital is outrageous. Someone must answer for this.”