Polish court rules extradition of Zmitser Salauyou, former editor of Mahilouski Rehijon, to Belarus “legally inadmissible”

On Octo­ber 22, the Region­al Court in Białys­tok held a hear­ing and ruled that the extra­di­tion of Zmitser Salauy­ou to Belarus is inad­mis­si­ble. As a reminder, in August of this year the Pros­e­cu­tor General’s Office of Belarus demand­ed that Poland extra­dite Salauy­ou, a native of Mahilou who is a forced polit­i­cal émi­gré.

Zmitser Salauy­ou. Pho­to: BAJ archive

Accord­ing to Salauy­ou, the Pol­ish side nev­er intend­ed to send him back to Belarus. Even so, he had to go through the legal pro­ce­dure after the Belaru­sian side sub­mit­ted its request.

“The pro­ceed­ings took place at the region­al court in Białys­tok. In Belaru­sian terms, that is the equiv­a­lent of an oblast court. I was ques­tioned in detail about the cir­cum­stances that forced me to leave my home­land and about what threat­ens me in Belarus.

I explained that two crim­i­nal cas­es have been opened against me in Belarus for my jour­nal­is­tic work: under Parts 1 and 2 of Arti­cle 361–1 of the Crim­i­nal Code of the Repub­lic of Belarus, for alleged­ly cre­at­ing an extrem­ist enti­ty and par­tic­i­pat­ing in it, and under Part 1 of Arti­cle 357 of the Crim­i­nal Code, for alleged­ly tak­ing part in a con­spir­a­cy or oth­er actions com­mit­ted with the aim of seiz­ing pow­er in an uncon­sti­tu­tion­al man­ner. I also men­tioned that in Belarus, pre­tri­al deten­tion has been autho­rized for me.

The court ruled that my extra­di­tion to the Belaru­sian author­i­ties is inad­mis­si­ble, because in the state request­ing extra­di­tion there could be a vio­la­tion of my free­dom and my rights,” Salauy­ou told BAJ after receiv­ing the offi­cial court deci­sion.

Under Pol­ish law, the deci­sion will now be sent to the Min­is­ter of Jus­tice, who will make the final deter­mi­na­tion.

Salauy­ou has lived in Poland since 2021. He left his home­land after learn­ing of his first crim­i­nal case. The exis­tence of a sec­ond one was revealed in the Pros­e­cu­tor General’s Office’s extra­di­tion request itself. The jour­nal­ist was informed of it dur­ing a con­ver­sa­tion at the Pol­ish prosecutor’s office this sum­mer. By that time, he had already been on a want­ed list in Rus­sia and Belarus for sev­er­al years.

Salauy­ou was edi­tor-in-chief of the news por­tal Mahilous­ki Rehi­jon, which is men­tioned in a deci­sion of the KGB of Belarus dat­ed Novem­ber 29, 2023 (the orig­i­nal text mis­tak­en­ly gave Novem­ber 19). That deci­sion des­ig­nat­ed as an “extrem­ist” enti­ty “a group of cit­i­zens unit­ed by the ini­tia­tive 6TV Bielarus and its struc­tur­al unit Mahilou Media (Navіny Mahilouska­ha Rehi­jonu).” The jour­nal­ist does not rule out that the demand for his extra­di­tion from Poland may pre­cede the start of spe­cial pro­ceed­ings (a tri­al in absen­tia) against him.