3 years in prison to Mikalai Rozumau for “slander of the President” :: Charter'97 :: News

This is the sentence passed by judge Tatsiana Rybakova on the criminal case brought by Orsha prosecutor’s office. As Radio Svaboda reports, the court found M.Rozumau’s guilty on article 367 of the Criminal Code; the resolution is based on the testimonies and video record of a meeting of Aliaksandar Milinkevich with voters held on February 24.

Operator of the local television company “Skif” Siargey Yausieyeu recorded the introductory speech at the meeting, where Mr.Rozumau claimed Aliaksandar Lukashenka to be involved in the cases of disappearances of Yury Zakharanka and Viktar Ganchar, which the court considered to be a “slander of the President”. The psychiatric examination held in the Minsk hospital Navinki proved the accused was sane for the moment of the meeting, although M.Rozumau claimed he didn’t remember either the meeting, or any events of that day at all, and hence didn’t admit his guilt.

Mr.Rozumau has been kept in custody since March 14, and he was allowed to go home only today, after the sentenced was announced. Now he will have to wait for the notice defining the place if imprisonment - “custodial restraint in an institution of open type”.

These legal proceedings lead to major feedback in Orsha, where Mikalai Rozumau is known, first of all, as a workers’ leader who in early 90s called the workers of the local enterprises to go on strike to express their discontent with the situation in the country, which were the first workers’ strikes in Belarus.