Kobryn: district court refuses to consider Aliaksandr Mekh’s complaint against unlawful detention
Alaksandr Mekh, the head of the BPF branch in Kobryn, got an answer from the district court over his arrest at the Dazhynki harvest festival.
Aliaksandr Mekh was arrested on 19 September, ahead of Aliaksandr Lukashenka’s visit to the town of Kobryn hosting the festival. He was detained by the police when he walking in a park with his son and guarded to the local police department. As the policemen stated later, an unknown man had called them and said Mekh was going to the city center carrying arms.
A detention report was drawn up against Aliaksandr Mekh. The report said the politician had been detained ‘on a suspicion of committing a crime’. No arms were found on the BPF activist, but he had to spend more than three hours in the police department.
‘After the unlawful detention and search in absent of witnesses, I filed a complaint to prosecutor Mikhail Zaparoshchanka. But it was redirected. I received an answer from Dashko, chief investigator of the prosecutor’s office of the Kobryn district. He said there were no elements of an offence in the actions of the policemen who had detained me,’ Aliaksandr Mekh said in his interview to charter97.org.
The opposition activist filed a complaint to Kobryn district court. The reply shocked him. ‘The court said my complaint can’t be admitted for consideration because ... there was no order to detain me. I was detained, a detention report was drawn up, but there was no order!’
The answer signed by the chairman of Kobryn district court Dziahel says: ‘Taking into account that you were released and no order to detain you was issued, there are no lawful grounds for the consideration of the complaint in accordance with Article 143 of the Criminal Process Code of Belarus.’
Aliaksandr Mekh says the reply of the court is a ‘travesty of the law’. ‘This is not just lawlessness. This is either ignorance of the law, or a travesty,’ the oppositionist says. ‘Chairman of the district court must be a professional, but his answer shows the opposite.’ Aliaksandr Mekh is going to file a complaint to Brest oblast court.
