Mikalai Autukhovich loses complaint against prison penalties

On the morning of March 28, Judge Zhanna Krauchanka of Hrodna’s Leninski District Court dismissed a complaint by political prisoner Mikalai Autukhovich, Radio Free Europe’s Belarus service reports.

During the previous two days, Hrodna prison No. 1 hosted a circuit session to hear the prisoner’s complaint against the penalties imposed on him by the prison administration. He was reprimanded twice and once he was placed in solitary confinement. Autukhovich hoped that if the complaint was met, it could affect the conditions of his life after release.

Mikalai Autukhovich’s prison term ends on April 8, but the political prisoner Autukhovich will be under preventive police supervision in his home town Vaukavysk for another 16 months.

In 2009, Mikalai Autukhovich was imprisoned again, this time for five years and two months. The grounds were five hunting cartridges: Article 295 part 3 of the Criminal Code – “illegal actions with firearms, ammunition and explosives.”