Investigative Committee refuses to drop criminal charge against tut.by editor in chief

As Bela­PAN reports, on Novem­ber 29 her peti­tion for ter­mi­na­tion of the crim­i­nal pros­e­cu­tion under Arti­cle 86 of the Crim­i­nal Code (exemp­tion from crim­i­nal lia­bil­i­ty with draw­ing a per­son to admin­is­tra­tive respon­si­bil­i­ty) was grant­ed. Leushy­na paid an admin­is­tra­tive fine of 30 basic units (735 BYN).

Now she is a wit­ness in the “BelTA case”. Her writ­ten under­tak­ing not to leave the coun­try was can­celed. In addi­tion, Leushy­na was giv­en back her hard dri­ves, con­fis­cat­ed dur­ing the search­es in August.

Thus, Mary­na Zolata­va remains the only per­son involved in the “BelTA case”. She was charged under Part 2 of Arti­cle 425 of the Crim­i­nal Code (“inac­tion of an offi­cial”). The max­i­mum penal­ty for this arti­cle is 5 years in prison.

On August 7–9, the offices of Tut.by and Bela­PAN were searched and a dozen jour­nal­ists were detained. They spent sev­er­al days in the tem­po­rary deten­tion cen­ter in the Akrestsi­na street.

On August 27, the major­i­ty of the sus­pects were banned from leav­ing the coun­try.

The Inves­tiga­tive Com­mit­tee sus­pects them of unau­tho­rized access to BelTA’s com­put­er infor­ma­tion. Inde­pen­dent ana­lysts are con­vinced that the case is an attempt by the author­i­ties to intim­i­date and take con­trol of the main non-state media, and even call the “BelTA case” the Tut.by case.