Custodial sentence for Russian nuclear physicist upheld

The Minsk City Court dismissed appeals by Andrei Ozharovsky and Mikhail Matskevich. They demanded to declare their administrative arrest illegal.

“The hearing went as we expected. The Minsk city court found the court decisions against Ozharovsky and Matskevich legal and ruled out to dismiss their appeals,” Iryna Sukhiy, the head of Ecohome NGO, told BelaPAN news agency.

Russian nuclear physicist Andrei Ozharovsky and activist of the Belarusian Anti-Nuclear Campaign Tatyana Novikava were detained on the morning of July 18. They were going to hand the Russian embassy in Minsk an open statement against signing the general agreement on construction of the nuclear power plant. Their whereabouts were known until evening, when it was figured out they had been tried in the Maskouski district court for disorderly conduct. Novikava received five days in custody, Ozharovsky was sentenced to ten days in custody.

Ozharovsky was deported from Belarus on July 28 after serving his 10-day term. He is forbidden to enter the country for 10 years. Mikhail Matskevich, a coordinator of the monitoring group at the Centre for Legal Information, was detained on July 28, when he tried to find information about Novikava and Ozharovsky. He was accused of disorderly conduct. The Tsentralny district court sentenced him to three days in custody.