The Court of Appeal in Belgrade heard the parties in the case of Andrei Hniot. The decision will be made within 30 days

On August 27, the Court of Appeal in Ser­bia held a hear­ing on the appeal of the Belaru­sian film­mak­er and jour­nal­ist Andrei Hniot. This is the last instance that can block the deci­sion of the Ser­bian author­i­ties to extra­dite Hniot to Belarus or, con­verse­ly, agree with the deci­sion of the Supreme Court of Ser­bia.

Andrei Hniot. Photo: DW

The court stud­ied the doc­u­ments and addi­tion­al argu­ments of the defense dur­ing the hear­ing on August 27. «Accord­ing to the law, the deci­sion will be made and announced with­in 30 days,» Maryia Kolesava-Hudzili­na, the jour­nal­ist’s lawyer, who is defend­ing Andrei Hniot along with lawyer Hanna Matsiyeuskaya, told the BAJ mon­i­tor­ing ser­vice.

Andrei Hniot him­self refus­es to com­ment and com­mu­ni­cate with the media for secu­ri­ty rea­sons and has intro­duced a «regime of silence».

Andrei Hniot has been under house arrest since ear­ly sum­mer after being held in a Bel­grade prison.

The Belaru­sian author­i­ties are seek­ing Hniot’s extra­di­tion from Ser­bia through Inter­pol, charg­ing him under Part 2 of Arti­cle 243 of the Crim­i­nal Code (tax eva­sion). In the spring, the Ser­bian author­i­ties decid­ed to extra­dite the activist to Belarus, but the deci­sion was suc­cess­ful­ly appealed and the case was sent for recon­sid­er­a­tion.

In July this year, Inter­pol refused to pros­e­cute Andrei Hniot, cit­ing the polit­i­cal nature of his case.

The case of Andrei Hniot

Andrei Hniot, 41, is a direc­tor of TV com­mer­cials and music videos, a jour­nal­ist and co-founder of the asso­ci­a­tion SOS.by, which is rec­og­nized as an «extrem­ist for­ma­tion» in Belarus.

On Octo­ber 30, 2023, he was detained by the Ser­bian Bor­der Guard upon his arrival in Bel­grade and hand­ed over to the police. The rea­son for his arrest was that he was on the inter­na­tion­al want­ed list at the request of the Belaru­sian Inter­pol Bureau. The agency request­ed that Hniot be extra­dit­ed to Belarus for crim­i­nal pros­e­cu­tion.

Min­sk claims that the case is eco­nom­ic, while Hniot’s defense insists that he’s being pros­e­cut­ed for polit­i­cal rea­sons.

Demo­c­ra­t­ic forces, rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the Belaru­sian dias­po­ra, Belaru­sian and inter­na­tion­al human rights orga­ni­za­tions, the Euro­pean Union spoke out in sup­port of Hniot, and the sit­u­a­tion was dis­cussed with the U.S. author­i­ties.