Harsh verdicts: Drakakhrust and Liubakova sentenced to 10 years in prison in «Tsikhanouskaya’s Analysts» case

The Min­sk Region­al Court con­sid­ered the cas­es of 20 indi­vid­u­als, des­ig­nat­ed as an extrem­ist for­ma­tion known as “Svi­at­lana Tsikhanouskaya’s Ana­lysts.” The crim­i­nal case involves inde­pen­dent media jour­nal­ists Yury Drakakhrust and Han­na Liubako­va.

Han­na Liubako­va, a defen­dant in the case of «Svi­at­lana Tsikhanouskaya’s Ana­lysts». Pho­to: Journalist’s social media page

The Belarus Pros­e­cu­tor Gen­er­al’s Office, which rep­re­sent­ed state pros­e­cu­tion in the tri­al, reports that all indi­vid­u­als asso­ci­at­ed with the extrem­ist for­ma­tion were found guilty of the fol­low­ing offens­es:

• con­spir­a­cy to seize state pow­er through uncon­sti­tu­tion­al means;
• join­ing an extrem­ist for­ma­tion to com­mit an extrem­ist crime;
• aid­ing and abet­ting pub­lic calls for actions aimed at harm­ing the nation­al secu­ri­ty of the Repub­lic of Belarus;
• facil­i­tat­ing delib­er­ate acts aimed at incit­ing social hatred and dis­cord based on social affil­i­a­tion by a group of per­sons.

One of the defen­dants, Ali­ak­san­dr Dabravol­s­ki, was addi­tion­al­ly found guilty of lead­ing an extrem­ist for­ma­tion and its sub­di­vi­sion.

What sentences were imposed?

The fol­low­ing sen­tences were imposed on the accused for the total­i­ty of the crimes com­mit­ted:

Ali­ak­san­dr Dabravol­s­ki – 11 years and 6 months of impris­on­ment and a fine of $73,350;

Han­na Kra­suli­na, Dzia­n­is Kuchyn­s­ki, Piotr Rud­k­ous­ki, Ali­ak­san­dr Shlyk – 11 years in prison and fines rang­ing from $12,250 to $490,000;

Han­na Liubako­va, Yury Drakakhrust, Ryhor Astape­nia, Fil­ip Bikanau, Andrei Kaza­ke­vich, Yauhen Kryzhanous­ki, Verani­ka Laput­ska, Ali­ak­san­dr Lahvinets, Vasil Navumau, Maria Roha­va, Ale­sia Rud­nik, Natal­lia Raba­va, Tat­siana Chulit­skaya, Kat­siary­na Shmatsi­na – 10 years in prison;

Pavel Usau – 11 years in prison.

The tri­al began on 31 May 2024 in the Min­sk Region­al Court, and the ver­dict was announced on 1 July 2024. The rul­ing has not yet become final and is sub­ject to appeal and chal­lenge.

To date, the prop­er­ty of the defen­dants in the crim­i­nal case of «Svi­at­lana Tsikhanouskaya’s Ana­lysts» — includ­ing apart­ments, hous­es, and land plots — has been seized «to ensure com­pen­sa­tion for the dam­age caused.»

The Pros­e­cu­tor Gen­er­al’s Office has announced that all defen­dants in the crim­i­nal case have «abscond­ed from jus­tice.» Con­se­quent­ly, the inves­ti­ga­tion and their tri­al were held in their absence.

«We consider this case to be a politically motivated prosecution»

The defen­dants shared their col­lec­tive appeal with the Zerka­lo media out­let at the out­set of the tri­al in absen­tia.

«The charges brought are typ­i­cal of oth­er polit­i­cal­ly moti­vat­ed crim­i­nal cas­es in Belarus, includ­ing con­spir­a­cy to seize state pow­er; actions aimed at incit­ing social hatred; aid­ing and abet­ting pub­lic calls to seize state pow­er; and par­tic­i­pa­tion in an extrem­ist for­ma­tion. All the ‘accused’ in the ‘case’ are abroad, so it is being con­sid­ered in their absence.

In light of the above, we feel it is impor­tant to high­light the fol­low­ing:

We con­sid­er this case to be a polit­i­cal­ly moti­vat­ed pros­e­cu­tion. All indi­vid­u­als arbi­trar­i­ly includ­ed in the case were sole­ly engaged in pro­fes­sion­al activ­i­ties that can­not be linked to the alle­ga­tions out­lined in the indict­ment. We view this case as a con­tin­u­a­tion of the per­sis­tent pres­sure from the Belaru­sian author­i­ties on the inde­pen­dent ana­lyst, expert, and jour­nal­is­tic com­mu­ni­ties. Fur­ther­more, we would like to point out that it is illog­i­cal to accuse experts and jour­nal­ists of attempt­ing to seize pow­er and extrem­ism.

The tri­al is con­duct­ed in vio­la­tion of the Belaru­sian leg­is­la­tion. Despite offi­cial requests, we have nev­er been grant­ed access to the case file. As a result, we are unable to con­firm the exact nature of the charges. Fur­ther­more, we were not informed of the date the tri­al was sched­uled to com­mence in accor­dance with Belaru­sian law. In con­tra­ven­tion of estab­lished norms, infor­ma­tion about the tri­al was not pub­lished in the «Spe­cial Crim­i­nal Pro­ceed­ings» sec­tion of the Supreme Court’s web­site.

We are not guar­an­teed the right to attor­ney in the crim­i­nal tri­al. Those of us who have not filed the respec­tive motions are unaware of the names of our for­mal­ly appoint­ed attor­neys.

We do not antic­i­pate a fair tri­al. It is our under­stand­ing that we will be «sen­tenced» to the terms spec­i­fied in the charges, just like thou­sands of Belaru­sians con­vict­ed in sim­i­lar polit­i­cal­ly moti­vat­ed cas­es.

We are grate­ful for all the sup­port and sol­i­dar­i­ty. We would like to express our grat­i­tude to the civ­il and jour­nal­is­tic com­mu­ni­ties, as well as our col­leagues in Belarus and abroad, for their sup­port.”