Guarantors for TUT.BY case defenders fined $7,300

Judge Valiantsi­na Zianke­vich sum­moned three wit­ness­es in the case of the for­mer TUT.BY jour­nal­ists Ale­na Talk­a­cho­va and Vol­ha Loi­ka, but they failed to appear in court at the appoint­ed time. Ear­li­er, the jour­nal­ists were released with a per­son­al recog­ni­zance to appear in court.

Ale­na Talkachova’s guar­an­tors were Valer Varanet­s­ki, a diplo­mat and mem­ber of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives, and Yauhen Pre­herman, a polit­i­cal sci­en­tist and for­mer head of the Inter­na­tion­al Rela­tions Coun­cil of the Min­sk Dia­logue Ini­tia­tive. Ali­ak­san­dr Shvets, head of the Repub­li­can Union of Indus­tri­al­ists and Entre­pre­neurs, pro­vid­ed a guar­an­tee for Vol­ha Loi­ka.

The court fined each of the guar­an­tors $7,300 for fail­ing to pre­vent the defend­ers from flee­ing jus­tice.

TUT.BY tri­al start­ed behind closed doors on 9 Jan­u­ary 2023. The media’s gen­er­al direc­tor Lud­mi­la Chek­ina and edi­tor-in-chief Mary­na Zolata­va were at the bar, while chief edi­tor of the polit­i­cal-eco­nom­ic block Vol­ha Loi­ka, edi­tor of the real estate depart­ment Ale­na Talcha­cho­va, and lawyer Kat­siary­na Tkachen­ka failed to appear in court. Kat­siary­na Tkachenka’s guar­an­tors have not been per­se­cut­ed so far.

Last year the jour­nal­ists were released on bail with the pledge to appear in court, but they left Belarus as soon as the court date was announced.

On 17 March, Judge Valiantsi­na Zianke­vich sen­tenced Lud­mi­la Chek­ina and Mary­na Zolata­va to 12 years of impris­on­ment.

Чытайце яшчэ:

«Чарговая спроба адарваць ад аўдыторыі». Чаму на асабістыя старонкі журналістаў у сацсетках сталі чапляць экстрэмісцкі цэтлік?

Ігар Лосік другі раз запар трапіў у штрафны ізалятар

Ситуация продолжает ухудшаться. Госдепартамент США оценил состояние свободы слова в Беларуси