Trial in “TUT.by case” to begin on 9 January

The case involves five peo­ple, two of them are in cus­tody – for­mer TUT.BY CEO Liud­mi­la Chek­ina and edi­tor-in-chief Mary­na Zolata­va.

The chief edi­tor of the polit­i­cal and eco­nom­ic news depart­ment, Vol­ha Loy­ka, jour­nal­ist Ale­na Talk­a­cho­va, and lawyer Kat­siary­na Tkachen­ka were pre­vi­ous­ly released from cus­tody pend­ing tri­al.

Liud­mi­la Chek­ina is charged with tax eva­sion, com­plic­i­ty in the incite­ment of social hatred and dis­cord, and dis­trib­ut­ing mate­ri­als encour­ag­ing actions that harm the nation­al secu­ri­ty of the Repub­lic of Belarus.

Mary­na Zolata­va, Vol­ha Loy­ka, and Ale­na Talk­a­cho­va are accused of aid­ing and abet­ting tax eva­sion, incit­ing social enmi­ty and dis­cord, and dis­trib­ut­ing mate­ri­als encour­ag­ing actions that harm the nation­al secu­ri­ty of the Repub­lic of Belarus.

Kat­siary­na Tkachen­ka is accused of aid­ing and abet­ting tax eva­sion and active par­tic­i­pa­tion in group actions that gross­ly vio­late pub­lic order.

Accord­ing to the pros­e­cu­tion, OOO TUT BY MEDIA ille­gal­ly received Hi-Tech Park ben­e­fits. The amount of under­paid tax­es in 2019–2021 is esti­mat­ed at over $1.2 bil­lion.

TUT.BY work­ers were detained in May 2021.