Minsk Regional Court dismisses Mikhail Hladki's appeal

March 13, Minsk Regional Court considered the appeal of Mikhail Hladki against the verdict of the Minsk District Court by which he was denied a compensation for the pecuniary and non-pecuniary damages resulting from unlawful imprisonment.

In his appeal the plaintiff stated that he considered the verdict illegal and paying no account to the specific circumstances of the case. The representative of the Ministry of Financesdidn't attend the trial. Mikhail Hladki himself arrived a little late.

During the hearing M. Hladki's counsel, Volha Kremko explained: "The criminal procedure legislation stipulates that a person loses the right to claim compensation only in the case of self-incrimination is excluded person's right to claim compensation, not in the case of pleading guilty.

I believe that here the Minsk District Court groundlessly allowed an expansive interpretation of this rule, since the legislator, noting this exception, did not equate the similar concepts of “pleading guilty” and “self-incrimination”. There are no concrete motives or evidence of self-incrimination in the confessions of M. Hladki. His pleading guilty of killing his brother was the result of a mistake made by M. Hladki in the assessment of his actions”.

The lawyer concludes that such an honest erroneous belief of a person in having committed a crime cannot be regarded as self-incrimination.

The prosecutor's speech was quite short, but was enough for Judge N. Boyka to uphold the verdict of the Minsk District Court for January 28, 2015 and leave the plaintiff without compensation.

“That's all. You can go”, said N. Boyka to M. Hladki at the departure.

Let us remind that in 2003 Mikhail Hladki was sentenced to 8 years in prison for the murder of his brother. At that time, he pleaded guilty, as he honestly believed that he had committed a crime. In 2012, the verdict against him was canceled due to lack of corpus delicti in his actions. E. Lykau was convicted for a number of murders, including that of Mikhail Hladki's brother, and was subsequently executed. Mikhail Hladki, in his turn, appealed to the Minsk District Court demanding a compensation for the physical and moral damages. Human Rights Centre “Viasna” helps him defend his rights within the campaign “Human Rights Defenders against Death Penalty”.