Supreme Court Upholds Verdict of Mikhail Zhamchuzhny

Mikhail Zhamchuzhny received a reply to the supervisory appeal which he had lodged to the Supreme Court in August, 2016.

In the supervisory appeal, Mikhail Zhamchuzhny pointed out that he had been a victim of a repeated investigative experiment; also, the criminal case was opened against him more than a year after the commission of acts that formed the basis for his conviction. “Thus, the law enforcement agencies artificially created the conditions that provoked me to commit similar acts in order to further provide evidence of the commission of more serious crimes,” said the prisoner.

The reply signed by the deputy chair of the Supreme Court Ruslan Aniskevich says that the court verdict has been made according to legislation. The cassation court has studied thoroughly the arguments and all documents attached and upheld the verdict.

It also became known that Mikhail Zhamchuzhny has been transferred to a different unit of the correctional colony. There, he has received one warning – for having a dirty bedstand. Another warning will make him a malicious violator of the regime. The prisoner appealed against the warning to the administration of the colony.

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We remind that in July 2015, Mikhail Zhamchuzhny was sentenced to 6 years’ imprisonment for allegedly committing numerous offences, including inciting the intentional disclosure of secret information, unlawful acquisition and selling of special technical means, and bribery. On October 23, the verdict was stiffened and the human rights activist was sentenced six and a half years in prison.

The charges stemmed from a series of episodes of 2013-2014, when Zhamchuzhny obtained official documents with information that, according to him, were of public interest: information on criminal cases opened against officials, a summary of the 2012 and 2013 incidents involving law enforcement officials, a special report on the sudden death of a citizen named Kudzelka in the temporary detention facility of the police department of the Viciebsk Regional Executive Committee, an Order of the Ministry of the Interior “On certain aspects of personnel work in the Interior Ministry”. These documents were handed over by Mikhail Zhamchuzhny to the human rights organization Platforma.

Belarusian human rights activists view Mikhail Zhamchuzhny as a political prisoner.