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Byalyatski loses appeal against prison sentence

A panel of the Minsk City Court on Tuesday upheld the prison sentence imposed on prominent human rights defender Ales Byalyatski, BelaPAN said.

On November 24, 2011, a judge of the Pershamayski District Court sentenced Mr. Byalyatski, leader of a human rights group called Vyasna (Spring) and vice president of the International Federation for Human Rights, to four and a half years in prison on a charge of large-scale tax evasion.

The charge stemmed from information about Mr. Byalyatski`s bank accounts abroad, which was provided by authorities in Lithuania and Poland. During his trial, Mr. Byalyatski insisted that the money transferred by various foundations to his bank accounts abroad had been intended to finance Vyasna`s activities and therefore could not be viewed as his income.

Mr. Byalyatski, 49, was not brought to the court for the appeal hearing. There was a nearly full courtroom, with Mr. Byalyatski`s relatives, journalists, civil society activists and foreign diplomats attending the hearing.

The three-judge panel rejected lawyer Dzmitry Layewski`s requests for allowing Mr. Byalyatski to attend the hearing and asking the organizations that transferred money to his bank accounts abroad to formally explain for what purpose they did so.

In addition, the panel also turned down the lawyer`s requests that the appeal hearing be postponed until documents about the movement of cash into or out of Mr. Byalyatski`s accounts are presented and that Mr. Byalyatski be released pending the new hearing.

Mr. Layewski denied that the money transferred to the human rights activist`s accounts was his income. He stressed that the district court had ignored the Lithuanian justice ministry’s letter that described Mr. Byalyatski`s bank account details disclosed to the Belarusian authorities as invalid and incorrect.

The lawyer asked the panel to overturn the sentence and order the release of his client.

Prosecutor Kiryl Chubkavets, for his part, said that the district court had explored all possible evidence against Mr. Byalyatski. The activist was aware of the need to pay taxes on the money in question and evaded them deliberately, Mr. Chubkavets said.

After a deliberation, Judge Uladzimir Stsyapurka, chairman of the panel, announced that the appeal had been turned down.

Days before the hearing, the money raised to pay what Ales Byalyatski was ordered to pay in his criminal case, including his alleged debt, penalties and litigation costs, was transferred by his wife Natallya Pinchuk to the account of the Pershamayski District Court.

Associates had expressed hope that the payment of the amount, 757.5 million rubels ($90,400), could influence the appeal hearing`s result.