Russians were taken to court: extend and don’t have mercy on

An author is an employee of the International observation mission Committee to control the situation concerning human rights in Belarus. Also a task is to observe uncover of the cases and a justice in criminal cases of the 19th of December

On February, 22th second criminal case was begun. The case concerns a participation in mass disturbances of the 19th of December in 2010.  Artem Breus and Ivan Gaponov are citizens of Russia. Before they had already administrative offences for uncoordinated public action’s participation. They are charged with crime’s commission concerned the Article 293 of Criminal Code of Belarus Republic. Judicial session was in the district court of Moscow in Minsk.  Despite of all expectations next session was moved to the 1st of March because of public  prosecutor office decided to accuse them of new cases.

It should be noticed that the room of the court is spacious comparing with the room in the court of Frunze city (the case of Vasiliy Parfenkov ). About 60 seats instead of 40.  Anyway not everybody could get in the court’s room that day. 20 minutes before the beginning there were long line but that person who didn’t find a seat was asked to go outside. An observer of the International observation mission and many representatives of society were not allowed to come in after the 1st break. Free seat were that day but security guards didn’t allow to get in.

Court building consists of less law enforcement bodies. Nevertheless there were a lot of the offices in simple cloths inside. There were the same offices like in Parfenkov’s  court day.

There was no permission to make movie or take pictures. Just after the journalists left the room a judge made a question about petition  of a video shooting. Nevertheless it was allowed to make a recording and to work with laptop.
Lubov Simahina is  a judge who was responsible for that procession.  She got in a list of “No entrance” because she passed unreasonable sentences of administrative arrests after the 19th of December. A prosecutor Sergey Kunas was represented charge side. The lawyers were more active than in Parfenkov’s case procession (Parfenkov was protected by State lawyer). The lawyers asked eyewitnesses a lot of questions. Also they asked law enforcement officers who detained the participants on Independent Square of the 19th of Dec.

In the morning there were asked two eyewitnesses from OMON. Both of them read their evidences by the list. So they had the same lists of the evidences. There was one complicated situation. Probably they forgot to change last names and they told: “Yakovlev was helping Yakovlev to detain Breus”. Everybody was laughing after that. The eyewitnesse mixed up Gaponov and Breus last names instead of that they called “a person with green hat” (probably that person was represented many people).  In addition OMON’s officers noticed each other on the Square by “Habits”. In the beginning of a break everybody heard that one of them told his workmate “ You are moron!”

As well as Breus words concerned he proved the fact that he was first among the demonstrators on Independent Square on the 19th of December. He couldn’t go back because he was scared to trample to death.  He didn’t anything illegal. By the way the whole dispute between Breus’s lawyers and charge side is concerned: it doesn’t matter that Breus was moving forward or to militia’s side by his own opinion or somebody was pushing him. Anyway Breus got one kick. One militiaman did that by bludgeon Breus on his head. Breus fell flat. He had blood from his head. Then he sat down on steps and took snow ball for his wound. He didn’t leave his place. Sooner law enforcement officers approached to him: Breus asked them aid, to go home at least. Instead of that he got one more kick by to bludgeon.
According to indications of Breus and Gaponov they have never met before, they didn’t know each other, they were not keen on politics, they were only unlucky to appear on the Square that day.  Information about meeting they figured out from mass media.

One more proof to prosecute was video shooting made on the Square on the 19th of December. Charge side decided to show that video but nobody could watch because the prosecutor’s back was bothering. It was cried out: “Put the prosecutor in a cage!”. As we know there was no any proves on video shooting. According to video Gaponov and Breus didn’t abuse law enforcement employees.

Thus nobody trusted charge side who made strange proves. Breus and Gaponov were simply meeting’s participants and they didn’t hurt law enforcement bodies. The prosecutor petitioned to make a break for 7 days. The judge agreed with him.
Civil plaintiff under President’s Administration rejected his lawsuit concerning Parfenkov’s case to get 14 mln rubles of Belarus. He rejected because the case was satisfied. Civil society collected that sum and money was sent in the evening.
Now we are waiting for new “Doomsday”: On March 1st Frunze’s and Moscow’s district courts will consider 4 cases concerning the participation in mass distributes of the 19th of December, plus Breus and Gaponov cases.