Serbian court blocks Andrei Hniot’s extradition, but journalist still held in custody

Andrei Hniot’s case will be returned to the High Court in Bel­grade for a new hear­ing. The Belaru­sian film­mak­er and journalist’s house arrest has been extend­ed until Octo­ber 30.

Andrei Hniot. Pho­to: Insta­gram / andrewH­niot

The first-instance deci­sion on Hniot was based on a “fac­tu­al sit­u­a­tion that was not ful­ly resolved,” accord­ing to the appeals court.

“Noth­ing has changed,” Andrew Hniot com­ment­ed on the lat­est news.

“Please do not rush to con­grat­u­late me, friends. It is impor­tant to under­stand what hap­pened. I was left under arrest. With­out a job, with­out a liveli­hood, with an hour out of the house, with­out med­ical care. I am moral­ly upright in the game of sur­vival. But time is against me: rent, food, water, health­care, lawyers. A new hear­ing? It costs 5,000 euros. Where am I sup­posed to get it?” Andrei Hniot told the BAJ mon­i­tor­ing ser­vice.

The journalist’s case has been returned to the ini­tial court for revi­sion. The new deci­sion word­ing states, “You have time to cor­rect mis­takes and request the nec­es­sary infor­ma­tion from Belarus for a legal­ly cor­rect extra­di­tion.”

“The Belaru­sian state has the option of send­ing a few more new crim­i­nal cas­es to Ser­bia. There is still time, and the oppor­tu­ni­ty is there for the tak­ing,” Andrei Hniot jokes.

“I am cur­rent­ly in a legal lim­bo between East and West, with no clar­i­ty on the resources avail­able to me, whether moral, mate­r­i­al, or phys­i­cal. While I have not been extra­dit­ed, the tri­al has not been stopped. My sit­u­a­tion has not improved; it has even wors­ened. The court has been instruct­ed to cor­rect the flaws in the case so that the extra­di­tion process is legal­ly sound. I am not giv­ing up, but I am frus­trat­ed.”

Andrei Hniot has been under house arrest since the begin­ning of the sum­mer, hav­ing pre­vi­ous­ly been detained in a Bel­grade remand cen­ter.

The case of Andrei Hniot

Andrei Hniot, 41, is a direc­tor of TV com­mer­cials and music videos and a jour­nal­ist. He was involved in video pro­duc­tion for the asso­ci­a­tion SOS.by, rec­og­nized as an “extrem­ist for­ma­tion” in Belarus.

Hniot was detained on Octo­ber 30, 2023 by the Ser­bian Bor­der Guard upon arrival in Bel­grade. He was sub­se­quent­ly hand­ed over to the police. The rea­son for the deten­tion was the individual’s inclu­sion on the inter­na­tion­al want­ed list at the request of the Belaru­sian Inter­pol Bureau on Sep­tem­ber 21, 2023. The agency asked to extra­dite Hniot to Belarus for crim­i­nal pros­e­cu­tion.

Min­sk main­tains that the case is busi­ness-relat­ed, where­as Hniot’s legal coun­sel asserts that he is being per­se­cut­ed for polit­i­cal rea­sons.

Pro-democ­ra­cy politi­cians, rep­re­sen­ta­tives of dias­po­ras, Belaru­sian and inter­na­tion­al human rights orga­ni­za­tions, and the Euro­pean Union have expressed sup­port for Hniot. The sit­u­a­tion was dis­cussed with the US author­i­ties.