Jailed Ex-Belarusian Presidential Candidate Finally Sees Lawyer

VITSEBSK, Belarus -- The jailed former Belarusian presidential candidate Andrey Sannikau has been allowed to see his lawyer for the first time in two months, RFE/RL's Belarus Service reports. 

Maryna Kavaleuskaya visited her client in the labor camp outside the eastern city of Vitsebsk where he is being held.

Kavaleuskaya told RFE/RL that Sannikau "looks normal and is keeping very well."

She maintained that none of the 20 letters Sannikau says he mailed to his lawyers in the last two months has reached them.

Sannikau was jailed for five years in May for his part in a mass demonstration following the controversial presidential election in December 2010, which returned incumbent Alyaksandr Lukashenka to power.

In late November, Sannikau was transferred from a labor camp in the eastern city of Babruysk to the camp near Vitsebsk.

The Vitsebsk labor camp's warden, Vital Ahnistykau, has been refusing to allow Sannikau's relatives, friends, and lawyers to meet with him since then.

No official explanation of the ban -- which violates a prisoner's rights -- has been given.