Belarus seeks extradition of exiled editor from Poland

Zmitser Salauy­ou, who left his home­land due to polit­i­cal per­se­cu­tion for his pro­fes­sion­al activ­i­ties, learned of the Belaru­sian author­i­ties’ request from the Pol­ish prosecutor’s office.

Zmitser Salauy­ou. Pho­to: BAJ archive

On August 7, he was called in for ques­tion­ing, in the course of which it became clear that the Pol­ish side has no inten­tion of extra­dit­ing the jour­nal­ist to Belarus.

“I vis­it­ed the Pol­ish prosecutor’s office twice. The first time I was sim­ply shown the doc­u­ments, but there was no sub­stan­tive con­ver­sa­tion, as there was no inter­preter. The sec­ond time an inter­preter was present; they ques­tioned me about the cir­cum­stances of my crim­i­nal cas­es and said they would send a writ­ten refusal to extra­dite me to the Belaru­sian side,” Zmitser Salauy­ou said.

Some­thing of a rev­e­la­tion for him was the fact that a sec­ond crim­i­nal case had already been opened against him in Belarus. The first was ini­ti­at­ed over “par­tic­i­pat­ing in an extrem­ist enti­ty.” From the Pros­e­cu­tor General’s Office of Belarus’s appeal to the Pol­ish Min­istry of Jus­tice, it emerges that the jour­nal­ist is now also charged with “con­spir­a­cy or oth­er actions com­mit­ted with the aim of seiz­ing pow­er through uncon­sti­tu­tion­al means”. His pre-tri­al deten­tion has been autho­rized in Belarus.

The Pros­e­cu­tor General’s Office guar­an­tees in its let­ter that prop­er con­di­tions will be main­tained for the jour­nal­ist while in cus­tody — that he will not be sub­ject­ed to tor­ture and will be held under con­di­tions that pre­clude the degra­da­tion of human dig­ni­ty. The office also states that the jour­nal­ist will be pros­e­cut­ed sole­ly for the offens­es list­ed in the extra­di­tion request.

Zmitser Salauy­ou was edi­tor-in-chief of the news por­tal Mahilous­ki Rehi­jon, which was named in a deci­sion of the KGB of Belarus dat­ed Novem­ber 29, 2023 (the orig­i­nal text erro­neous­ly stat­ed Novem­ber 19), des­ig­nat­ing the “group of cit­i­zens unit­ed by the ini­tia­tive 6TV Belarus and its struc­tur­al sub­di­vi­sion Mahilou Media” an extrem­ist enti­ty.

“I was aware of my ‘par­tic­i­pa­tion’ in an ‘extrem­ist’ enti­ty. How­ev­er, I have no idea who I alleged­ly con­spired with to seize pow­er in Belarus. This case may have arisen after I par­tic­i­pat­ed in a Kas­tus Kali­nous­ki Reg­i­ment con­fer­ence. Or maybe the inves­ti­ga­tors sim­ply decid­ed that I had ‘con­spired’ with my fel­low jour­nal­ists,” says Salauy­ou.

In the journalist’s view, the extra­di­tion demand from Poland may pre­cede the ini­ti­a­tion of pro­ceed­ings against him in absen­tia, fol­lowed by the con­fis­ca­tion of his prop­er­ty. Zmitser Salauy­ou believes the Belaru­sian side is for­mal­ly going through the motions of search­ing for him abroad. He was placed on a want­ed list in Belarus and Rus­sia sev­er­al years ago.

Zmitser Salauy­ou was detained mul­ti­ple times in 2020 for his jour­nal­is­tic work. He was com­pelled to serve sev­er­al admin­is­tra­tive deten­tion terms, and dur­ing one of his deten­tions he held a hunger strike for eight days in protest.