Prosecutor’s Office Threatens to Krasouski’s Lawyer Pavel Sapelka

11.10.2006.

HRC Viasna found out that the youth activist Pavel Krasouski is suspected in a number of rapes of under-aged girls. The crimes were committed in 1999 in a number of Belarusian cities among which the prosecutor’s office calls Barysau and Mahiliou. For instance, in Barysau a girl born in 1984 was raped and murdered. Krasouski’s lawyer Pavel Sapelka considers such accusation absurd and groundless.

During today’s investigation the senior investigator of especially important cases Aliaksandr Rasolka pressurized Mr Sapelka. He threatened that the lawyer would be deprived of his license and could become a suspect in a criminal brought on the fact of assaults on under-aged boys.

The human rights activist Valiantsin Stefanovich commented: ‘Not only Krasouski is pressurized, his lawyer is as well. It witnesses the politically motivated nature of this case. It can be considered as the beginning of a new stage in persecution of the opposition and the use of murder and rape charges instead of the political articles. We think that the Belarusian authorities aim not only to persecute the democratic activists, but also to discredit them in the eyes of the Belarusian citizens and the international community. We demand the immediate release of Pavel Krasouski. We are also concerned with the fate of the lawyer Sapelka who can also become a victim of repressions though his activity is guaranteed by the Constitution of the Republic of Belarus.