English

Statkevich urged to apply for pardon

Mikalay Statkevich has once again been told to file an application for a presidential pardon, according to Maryna Adamovich, the wife of the imprisoned former presidential candidate.

As Ms. Adamovich told BelaPAN, her husband wrote in his letter that it was the first time in six months that he had been urged to apply for a pardon. “They said to him, ‘Stop play this hero vs. bandits game, get out of prison and go to the seaside,’” Mr. Adamovich said.

She stressed that applying to Alyaksandr Lukashenka for a pardon was out of the question for her husband. “Mikalay has repeatedly said in his letters that this is totally unacceptable to him,” she said.

Mr. Statkevich, currently 56, has been in prison for more than three years now. In May 2011, a district judge in Minsk sentenced him to six years in a medium-security prison, finding him guilty of organizing "mass disorder" in connection with a post-election protest staged in the Belarusian capital city on December 19, 2010.

In a trial that took place in a prison in Shklow, Mahilyow region, on January 12, 2012, a judge found Mr. Statkevich guilty of violating prison rules and ordered him placed in a higher-security correctional institution for three years.

The charge was brought against Mr. Statkevich because of his missing number tag and failure to mention handkerchiefs among his personal items.

Since January 2012, Mr. Statkevich has been held in a two-man cell in Prison No. 4 in Mahilyow.

So-called political prisoners can be released, including before the expiration of their terms, in accordance with the law, Mr. Lukashenka said Tuesday at a news conference. When asked why he was holding his political rivals in prison, including former presidential candidate Statkevich, the Belarusian leader said that there were no political rivals to him there. “He [Statkevich] is no rival to me,” he said. “There were 10 candidates for President [in 2010]. What of that? What makes him my rival or opponent?”