UN: Trial over Mikhail Marynich is political lynching

The UN Human Rights Committee admitted that tortures had been used against Mikhail Marynich.

Mr. Marynich, a former minister of foreign economic affairs, former ambassador of Belarus to Latvia, participant of the 2001 presidential campaign, managed to gain justice after 6-year struggle. The UN Committee on Human Rights admitted the trial over the politician in December 2004 in Minsk, where Marynich was sentenced to five years of imprisonment allegedly for stealing office equipment from the US Embassy, was not fair and independent. As the UN Human Rights Committee thinks, the trial was under close surveillance of the secret services, judges had biased approach towards the facts picked up during the investigation and evidence of witnesses that in fact makes the criminal case a political lynching, Narodnaya Volia newspaper reports.

Besides, the UN Committee on Human Rights admits that the politicians faced tortures and inhuman and degrading treatment.

The Belarusian state is obliged to provide Marynich necessary medical treatment, including paying a compensation, and start criminal proceedings to establish responsibility for degrading treatment of Marynich. The offical Minsk has a little more than 100 days to report to the UN on the measures taken.