Minsk Prosecutor’s Office Refuses to Consider Complaint on Kazulin’s Beating

On 27 April 2007 the head of the juridical service of Aliaksandr Kazulin Aleh Volchak and his daughter Yuliya Kazulina received an answer from Minsk prosecutor’s office concerning the beating of Aliaksandr Kazulin on 2 March 2006 by special police forces.

To their complaint the applicants had attached numerous photo and video materials witnessing the excess of the official duties by the policemen, and an audio recording of a conversation of the former worker of Almaz police unit Ihar Makar with the minister of interior Uladzimir Navumau, made several days before the detention of Aliaksandr Kazulin on 25 March.

The answer to the complaint was signed not by the prosecutor, M. Kulik, but by the chair of the department of supervision of investigation of criminal cases B.Lehchyn, who stated that the applicants weren’t a part of the criminal process and had no right to such complaint, that’s why he didn’t consider the complaint. According to the legal order, the answer was to have been given by the prosecutor, as a result of which Volchak and Kazulina could appeal the answer to a higher instance. Being guided by this fact, they sent a repeated complaint to the prosecutor with the aim to receive an answer from him personally.