Andrei Hniot holds press conference upon departure from Serbia

Andrei Hniot, a Belaru­sian direc­tor who spent the last year in a deten­tion cen­ter and then under house arrest in Ser­bia, was released and «evac­u­at­ed» to the Euro­pean Union. On Novem­ber 2, he held a press con­fer­ence in Berlin with his lawyers, Maryia Kole­sa­va-Hudzili­na and Han­na Mat­siyeuskaya.

“I did not regularly leave Serbia”

Andrei Hniot is a Belaru­sian jour­nal­ist, film­mak­er, polit­i­cal activist, and polit­i­cal pris­on­er. While in Ser­bia, he was defend­ed by eight lawyers and solic­i­tors. Hniot thanked Svi­at­lana Tsikhanouskaya, Pavel Latush­ka, and the pro-democ­ra­cy move­ment. He also gave spe­cial thanks to the Ger­man gov­ern­ment, espe­cial­ly Olaf Scholz.

He asked the inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty to do every­thing they can to free Belaru­sian polit­i­cal pris­on­ers.

Andrei Hniot spent a few min­utes thank­ing every­one who helped him get released. He even thanked the Ser­bian gov­ern­ment for “all their hard work in recent days.”

What did Hniot thank the Serbian government for?

“I had a strange expe­ri­ence. For one year, I tried to save my life. For a whole year, I was not lis­tened to. … If it were not for the Appeals Court, I would have been extra­dit­ed long ago and sent to tor­ture and death,” said Andrei Hniot. “I believe that the Ser­bian author­i­ties should pay atten­tion to the judi­cia­ry.”

“I still believe that Ser­bia is a decent Euro­pean coun­try. Despite what hap­pened to me, I want Ser­bia to be seen as part of the Euro­pean fam­i­ly. I want my expe­ri­ence to be the first and last exam­ple of how unfair­ly Belaru­sians in exile can be treat­ed by the author­i­ties. This applies to Ser­bia and oth­er coun­tries, which are not always sen­si­tive to the case of Belaru­sians,” said the for­mer pris­on­er.

Were there any negotiations with the political leadership of Serbia on the release of Andrei Hniot?

“Diplo­mats from the Euro­pean Union, the Unit­ed States, Great Britain, and Cana­da appealed to the Ser­bian author­i­ties to release me. The most impor­tant event occurred at the UN Gen­er­al Assem­bly in the Unit­ed States a few weeks ago, when Svi­at­lana Tsikhanouskaya’s team estab­lished direct con­tact with the gov­ern­ment of Pres­i­dent Vučić. Dzia­n­is Kuchyn­s­ki main­tained this con­tact. The Ser­bian side was very respon­sive and atten­tive. The fact that I end­ed up here, and not in a Belaru­sian prison, is a direct result of these con­tacts and nego­ti­a­tions,” Hniot said.

How did he leave Serbia? Why is leaving the country called an “evacuation”?

“I did not reg­u­lar­ly leave Ser­bia. I did not just pick up my suit­case and go to the air­port. In his car, the deputy Ger­man ambas­sador to Ser­bia accom­pa­nied me to the air­port. There, I met with Ser­bian rep­re­sen­ta­tives. They arranged for me to go through pass­port con­trol and, impor­tant­ly, to have a per­son­al police offi­cer assigned to me. I was told that I might be in phys­i­cal dan­ger, so the Ser­bian police­man escort­ed me to the plane. I was the first to board an emp­ty plane – more VIP than busi­ness class.”

Andrei Hniot recount­ed that the police­man offered him two options at the air­port: to stay in the lounge under guard or vis­it the police sta­tion to social­ize. He accept­ed and was led to the same room where he’d been held the year before. Unlike his first harsh treat­ment, he was wel­comed like an old friend this time, and they spent an hour and a half togeth­er.

“Nothing is over yet”

“The extra­di­tion process in Ser­bia is ongo­ing, with only the deten­tion terms mod­i­fied. There’s no time lim­it — it could take one year or ten,” said lawyer Maryia Kole­sa­va-Hudzili­na, not­ing that some sim­i­lar cas­es have last­ed over a decade.

The day Andrei Hniot left Ser­bia, Belarus labeled his social media accounts as “extrem­ist mate­ri­als,” effec­tive­ly acknowl­edg­ing the polit­i­cal nature of his per­se­cu­tion.

Andrei Hniot’s adventure in Serbia

Andrei Hniot was detained in Ser­bia on Octo­ber 30, 2023, fol­low­ing Belaru­sian extra­di­tion request relat­ed to tax eva­sion charges. Hniot and his defense argue that the case is polit­i­cal­ly moti­vat­ed.

After over sev­en months in Bel­grade prison, he was placed under house arrest on June 3, 2024.

In July, Inter­pol dropped the case, rec­og­niz­ing its polit­i­cal basis. Then, on Sep­tem­ber 11, a Bel­grade court over­turned his extra­di­tion due to pro­ce­dur­al vio­la­tions, order­ing a new hear­ing.

Hniot has called the charges “false” and empha­sized the Belaru­sian regime’s “sys­tem­at­ic per­se­cu­tion” of polit­i­cal dis­si­dents, fear­ing a poten­tial death sen­tence if returned.