Continuation of Trial of Levanewski and Vasilyew

RFE/RL

The head of the strike committee of entrepreneurs Valery Levanewski has spent already four months behind bolt and bar. Today there was also the fifth day of the trial against Levanewski and his substitute Aliaksandr Vasilyew. They are charged with public insult to president Lukashenka. The state accuser Panasiuk tries to prove that the fly-sheet which they distributed, insulted president.

The court listened to witnesses of the accusation. They were asked whether there was any insult in the poem that was printed in the fly-sheet. Valery Levanewski solicited to court for finding these witnesses irrelevant, because by interrogating the witnesses who, according to their own words, have little understanding of poetry, the accusation artificially created evidence of his guilt. He said that the witnesses were interrogated as experts which have knowledge in certain field, though they are not, which is a violation of criminal-process legislation.

The experts that analyzed the poem on request of the investigator that prepared the criminal case didn’t find any insults to Lukashenka in the poem, that’s why the accuser decided to use the police, workers and pensioners as experts instead.