ECHR denies Andrei Hniot’s bid to block extradition to Belarus

The legal coun­sel request­ed that the extra­di­tion of the direc­tor be pro­hib­it­ed until the Euro­pean Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has con­sid­ered his case. How­ev­er, on August 19, the ECHR in Stras­bourg denied Andrei Hniot pro­tec­tion from extra­di­tion for the third time.

Film direc­tor Andrei Hniot. Pho­to: andrewgny­ot / Insta­gram

“The ECHR has deter­mined that my request is pre­ma­ture and may be recon­sid­ered fol­low­ing the deci­sion of the Ser­bian court, which will be the final and bind­ing author­i­ty on the mat­ter. I am cur­rent­ly seek­ing to hire more coun­sels in Ser­bia, but they require advance pay­ment,” Andrei Hniot stat­ed on his Face­book page.

BY_help co-founder and head Ali­ak­sei Liavonchyk recalls that in 2017, Ser­bia extra­dit­ed a Turk­ish dis­si­dent to Turkey in this way. After refus­ing to delay his depor­ta­tion, he was put on a flight to Istan­bul the same day. The ECHR’s extra­di­tion ban reached Bel­grade three hours after the plane land­ed in the Turk­ish cap­i­tal.

Andrei Hniot claims that accord­ing to the pro­ce­dure, after the refusal of the Ser­bian court, he can be put on the plane and sent to Belarus with­in 3–4 hours. The ECHR mis­sion sim­ply won’t have time to reach Bel­grade.

A fundrais­ing cam­paign to sup­port direc­tor and jour­nal­ist Andrei Hniot 

On August 25, a protest ral­ly against the extra­di­tion of Andrei Hniot to the Belaru­sian author­i­ties will be held in The Hague, in front of the Ser­bian Embassy.

The Ser­bian Court of Appeal will con­sid­er the Belaru­sian filmmaker’s appeal against the extra­di­tion deci­sion on August 27.

The case of Andrei Hniot

Andrei Hniot is a direc­tor of TV com­mer­cials and music videos and a jour­nal­ist. He was engaged in video pro­duc­tion for the asso­ci­a­tion SOS.by, which has been des­ig­nat­ed as an “extrem­ist for­ma­tion” in Belarus.

In May 2022, he won the Effie Awards Rus­sia com­pe­ti­tion. In 2016, the marketing.by news out­let report­ed that Hniot is “one of the most famous and in-demand” Belaru­sian direc­tors. His client list includes well-known domes­tic brands such as MTS, Mark Formelle, Bul­bash, Oli­varia, Spar­tak, Bel­lakt, and World of Tanks.

The 41-year-old film­mak­er was detained by the Ser­bian Bor­der Guard on Octo­ber 30, 2023, upon arrival in Bel­grade. He was sub­se­quent­ly hand­ed over to the police.

The rea­son for deten­tion is the individual’s inclu­sion on the inter­na­tion­al want­ed list at the request of the Belaru­sian Inter­pol Bureau on Sep­tem­ber 21, 2023. The agency asks to extra­dite Hniot to Belarus for crim­i­nal pros­e­cu­tion.

The Com­mit­tee to Pro­tect Jour­nal­ists issued a state­ment call­ing on the Ser­bian author­i­ties to imme­di­ate­ly release Belaru­sian Andrei Hniot and not to extra­dite him to Belarus.

On March 12, the Court of Appeal in Bel­grade over­turned the deci­sion to extra­dite Hniot to Belarus. The case was remand­ed for recon­sid­er­a­tion.

In July it became known that Inter­pol exclud­ed Andrei Hniot from its “red list”.

Andrei Hniot has been under arrest in Ser­bia for a year.