Court dismissed five motions of Ivan Kruk

Judge Alexander Demeshchyk who heads Astravets district court dismissed five out of the six motions made by the activist of the United Civil Party Ivan Kruk.

On 25 June the court continued the legal proceedings against Ivan Kruk on charges in ‘distribution of periodicals without imprint’ (Artile 22.9 of the Administrative Code) for dissemination of information agaisnt the construction of a new nuclear power station in Astravets district.

The defendant proposed the court to submit an inquiry to the Ministry of Information so that it would present its procession against concerning the imprint in each edition. He also asked the court to demand the necessary information from Astravets district communication center in order to check whether the police submitted the necessary materials to the Ministry of Information in the legal terms (ten days after confiscation of the editions).

In addition, Ivan Kruk solicited for summoning of the secretary of Astravets district police department for presenting the register of outgoing correspondence and the suspension of the trial till receiving the answer from the communication center and the office of the prosecutor general, which he asked to give a legal evaluation to the police actions (Mr. Kruk states they have violated the national administrative legislation and the international legislation regulating the dissemination of information).

The judge did not grant any of these motions and stated that they were not related to the case. He also did not let the activist of the United Civil Party Mikalai Ulasevich to represent the defendant’s interests at the trial (though the latter had a notarized warrant) and stated that only relatives and attorneys had the right to do it.

The court questioned the local police inspector Alexander Yancheuski. In his initial report the policeman stated that he had found the newspapers Mirny Atam and Glotok Vozdukha and two issues of Astravetski Vesnik in a postbox and took them to the police department. However, at the trial he stated that these editions had been confiscated from Kruk out in the street by another policeman.

The only petition the court granted was to summon the policeman to whom the police inspector referred. At the next court sitting, on 26 June, Ivan Kruk will be given the floor.