Political prisoner Illia Salei is free

Illia Salei, a lawyer who was earlier arrested on criminal charges linked to his role in the Coordination Council, has been released from pre-trial detention, according to reliable sources.

The Investigative Committee, however, refused to provide any comment on the decision.

Salei was arrested on September 9 in a criminal case under Part 3 of Art. 361 of the Criminal Code (calls for actions aimed at undermining the national security of the Republic of Belarus, its sovereignty, territorial inviolability and defense). On September 12, the investigators authorized the lawyer's pre-trial detention for 2 months.

On September 21, the Partyzanski District Court of Minsk rejected an appeal by Salei's lawyers and left him in custody.

The country's human rights community called him a political prisoner.

Illia Salei was among the participants in Aliaksandr Lukashenka's meeting with political prisoners, which took place in the KGB pre-trial prison on October 10. After the meeting, the authorities ordered to release businessman Yury Vaskrasenski and director of the IT company PandaDoc Dzmitry Rabtsevich.

On October 13, two more defendants in the PandaDoc case were released, chief accountant Yuliya Shardyka and HR Uladzislau Mikhalap.