Mikhail Hladki challenges verdict of Minsk District Court

February 3, Mikhail Hladki, who had been illegally convicted of killing his brother, appealed to the Minsk Regional Court asking to cancel averdict of the Minsk District Court and to recognize his right to obtain compensation for the damage inflicted to him by the illegal conviction under Part 1 of Art 139 of the Criminal Code.

In his appeal Mr. Hladki states that while turning down his appeal for a compensation for illegal imprisonment the Minsk District Court ignored the circumstances of the case. There wasn't found any objective and indisputable evidence that by his confession he had prevented the discovery of the real circumstances of the criminal case concerning the murder of his brother, V. Hladki.

Moreover, Mikhail Hladki stresses that there is no clearly determined notion of "voluntary false self-incrimination" and suggests that "self-incrimination is the knowingly false testimony by a suspect, given by him or her with the aim to convince the investigative authorities and the court that he/she had committed a crime which had been really committed by someone else. In this context, an honest mistake of a person in the criminal nature of his/her actions or their consequences cannot be regarded as voluntary false self-incrimination.” Thus, the applicant concludes that the findings of the court about the “false self-incrimination on his part” are groundless.

Let us remind that in 2003 Mikhail Hladki was sentenced to 8 years in prison for having allegedly killed his brother. At that time he pleaded guilty as he honestly believed that he had killed his brother. In 2012, his sentence was reversed due to the absence of corpus delicti in his actions. As it was discovered, the murder of Mikhail's brother and mother had been committed by another person, Eduard Lykau, who was later sentenced to death for killing five persons during nine years.

Mikhail Hladki, in his turn, appealed to the Minsk District Court, requiring a compensation for the material and moral harm. Human Rights Centre “Viasna” renders him legal assistance.