Prosecution requests 12-year sentence for Nobel Peace Prize laureate Ales Bialiatski

State pros­e­cu­tor Ali­ak­san­dr Karol claims that the guilt of human rights defend­ers of smug­gling by an orga­nized group under Part 4 Arti­cle 228 of the Crim­i­nal Code and financ­ing of group actions gross­ly vio­lat­ing the pub­lic order under Part 2 of Arti­cle 342 of the Crim­i­nal Code has been ful­ly proven. He has request­ed the fol­low­ing sen­tences Vias­na lead­er­ship:

• Vias­na chair and Nobel Peace Prize lau­re­ate Ales Biali­ats­ki—12 years in a medi­um-secu­ri­ty penal colony
• Vias­na deputy chair and vice-pres­i­dent of FIDH Valiantsin Ste­fanovic—11 years in a medi­um-secu­ri­ty penal colony
• Human Rights Defend­ers for Free Elec­tions cam­paign coor­di­na­tor Uladz­imir Labkovich—9 years in a medi­um-secu­ri­ty penal colony
• human rights defend­er Zmitser Salauy­ou—10 years in a medi­um-secu­ri­ty penal colony (in absen­tia)

The pros­e­cu­tor also asks the court to order a fine of 185,000 Belaru­sian rubles (approx. $73,200) to each of the defen­dants.

UPDATE: The first ver­sion of this arti­cle false­ly stat­ed that the pros­e­cu­tion asked for 5,000 rubles in fines for the defen­dants. We apol­o­gize for the inac­cu­ra­cy.