Last sentences in the ‘case of 14’

The trial, lead by Judge Valery Yesman, started at 9.30 a.m. Three persons were tried: Maxim Dashuk (under age), Mikhail Subach and Pavel Vinahradau. 

 It was postponed from 23 May, when the summit of the heads of the CIS countries was held in Minsk.  The court offered no explanations concerning the reasons for such delay. 

9.45 a.m. – the public, including the Ambassadors of the EU countries, representatives of the OSCE mission and the majority of the persons who had been already convicted on this case, was invited to the trial. The court was guarded by three small busses with riot police and a number of police guards near the entrance to Dynamo stadium, situated near the court.

9.50 – the trial started. The prosecutor read the charges. 

10.05 – Pavel Vinahradau, one of the accused, expressed impeachment to the court.

10.10 – the interrogation of witnesses started. 

10.25 – No to repressions banner unfurled down from the roof of a building which was situated near the court. It was noticed by the ten persons who were waiting for a break in the trial, and by the riot policemen. The latter ones climbed the roof and tore the banner away.

10.40 – the judge announces a 15-minute break due to the absence of several witnesses. The three witnesses who represented the Tsentralny gastronome, the transport enterprise and the private shop which were situated near Kastrychnitskaya Square had no pretensions to the accused.

The trial was attended by a leader of the entrepreneurs’ movement Ales Makayeu, who came there together with his younger son. ‘It is the continuation of the criminal case against the youth who took part in the meeting in support of the rights of entrepreneurs. The youth defended the rights of the whole Belarusian people to assembly and expression,’ he said. 

11.25 – the court interrogated the witness Mikalai Karachun, director of the HUM (city supermarket) shop. He had not pretensions to the accused either. After him the director of the Lasunak shop Vera Filipenkava and traffic policemen were interrogated. 

11.45 – the traffic policeman Aliaksandr Subach stated that he saw the accused persons for the first time and they did not differ from other participants of the action. 

12.05 – two more road policemen were interrogated. Again, both of them said they were seeing the accused for the first time. 

12.20 – the representatives of the inspection in the affairs of under-aged were interrogated within the case against the minor Maxim Dashuk. The witnesses had only one pretension to the accused – that he had missed two school classes in November 2007. 

12.30 – another break was declared. 

2.15 p.m. – the trial was continued. The vide-head of the traffic police of Minsk Maxim Padbiarozkin was interrogated. He recognized that Dashuk and Subach were participants of the protest action which had taken place on 10 January in Minsk. 

2.55 – Padbiarozkin stated to the court that the accused hit the traffic policemen in the legs and insulted them. The interrogation of witnesses finished and the consideration of written materials of the case started.

3.25 – the watching of the video materials from the protest action started.

The sentences to the accused are quite predictable. The under-aged Maxim Dashuk was sentenced to 1.5 years of personal restraint without direction to prison facility, and Vinahradau and Subach – to two years.