Mother not allowed to meet with Andrei Haidukou before trial
The
23-year-old resident of Navapolatsk is charged with "treason by
the intelligence activities." On The closed court hearings on
his case will started on 12 June. The mother of the arrested is sure
of his innocence and laments the fact she hasn't received any latters
from him for more than a week. Her request for a meeting with him
wasn't granted.
It was her third attempt to meet with him
during the 7-month investigation. This time, she received a refusal
from the Vitsebsk Regional Court.
"I wasn't allowed to
meet with him again and again receive no letters. As I found from the
counsel, Andrei has been kept in the remand prison in Vitsebsk since
3 June and was ill. He asked me to give pass him mints from the
throat, but they are not accepted in jail as the prison medic is
allegedly out of office. It is very troubling that the letters aren't
passed again. Andrei wrote us almost everyday and we received the
letters when he was in the Minsk remand prison, whereas in Vitsebsk
everything is vice-verse: there were problems with correspondence
when he was kept there before, and we also experience them now. It is
possible that our letters don't reach him either," commented
Volha Haidukova.
Andrei Haidukou was detained in Vitsebsk on 8
November 2012. Since then, he has been in custody mostly in the Minsk
KGB remand prison, but at the end of 2012 it was transferred to the
remand jail in Vitsebsk for about a month.
According to the
official information of the KGB, he was detained "while making a
cache with information that may be relevant to foreign intelligence
services". A criminal case for "high treason" was
brought against the detainee, who can be sentenced to 7-15 years in
prison.
According to the Chairman of the KGB Valery Vakulchyk,
the hearings on the case in the Vitsebsk regional court are likely to
be closed. Human rights activists insist on the publicity of the
trial, as well as Volha Haidukova. She does not believe that her son
would engage in espionage. Relatives and friends also believe that
the harassment by the KGB is an attempt to intimidate youth
activists. It is known that Andrei Haidukou was repeatedly threatened
with "trouble" by unknown "men in civilian clothes,"
very often – during election campaigns, when he worked in teams of
independent candidates, and also during the "silent
protests."
Volha Haidukova is concerned about the health
of her son: she knows that at the end of last week he was ill. And if
he does not get better in a few days, he will
probably write a statement for the posponement of the trial to a
later date.