Supreme Court releases Tatsiana Pytsko from jail and commutes Viachaslau Lazarau’s sentence

The ver­dict of today’s closed tri­al was report­ed to the BAJ mon­i­tor­ing ser­vice by human rights defend­er Pavel Lev­in­au.

Accord­ing to the Supreme Court’s deci­sion, Viachaslau Laza­rau must serve five years in prison, which com­mutes his orig­i­nal sen­tence by 6 months. He was found guilty of pro­mot­ing extrem­ist activ­i­ty.

His wife Tat­siana Pyt­sko who was ini­tial­ly sen­tenced to three years in prison for the same crime is to be released from cus­tody after the appeal. The Supreme Court ruled to change her pun­ish­ment to a three-year sus­pend­ed sen­tence.

Tat­siana Pyt­sko may be freed from Vit­seb­sk pre­tri­al deten­tion cen­ter after being held for near­ly six months, pro­vid­ed that the facil­i­ty receives the nec­es­sary files regard­ing the recent Supreme Court deci­sion by mail.

On Sep­tem­ber 25 this year, Vit­seb­sk free­lancer Viachaslau Laza­rau and his wife Tat­siana Pyt­sko were found guilty of work­ing with the Bel­sat TV chan­nel deemed extrem­ist by the Belaru­sian author­i­ties.

Viachaslau Laza­rau was detained on 9 Feb­ru­ary 2023. Secu­ri­ty forces searched his home and seized his office equip­ment. He has been detained ever since. Tat­siana Pyt­sko was arrest­ed on 6 June 2023, dur­ing anoth­er house search. She was on mater­ni­ty leave at the time, car­ing for their one-year-old daugh­ter. The baby was placed in a local children’s hos­pi­tal until Tatsiana’s rel­a­tives col­lect­ed her. Tatsiana’s ex-hus­band takes care of their two old­er chil­dren.

Tat­siana Pyt­sko and Viachaslau Laza­rau remain in the Vit­seb­sk pre­tri­al deten­tion cen­ter. They were pre­vi­ous­ly arrest­ed dur­ing the 2020 protests and had to spend some time in jail. In the same year’s autumn, Laza­rau was detained and searched three more times, but the case did not go to court.

Besides, the video­g­ra­ph­er was fined sev­er­al times in 2018–19 for col­lab­o­rat­ing with for­eign media with­out state accred­i­ta­tion.

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