The verdict in the «zero per mille» case: six months in prison for TUT.BY journalist and suspended two years for the doctor

The case was heard by Mask­ous­ki dis­trict court of Min­sk in the House of Jus­tice on Semash­ki Street. The judge’s name is Svi­at­lana Ban­daren­ka, and the state pros­e­cu­tor’s –Lud­mi­la Iva­nen­ka. Kat­siary­na Bary­se­vich was defend­ed by lawyers Andrei Macha­lau and Mikhail Bad­nar­chuk, and Art­siom Sarokin– by Vol­ha Bat­siuk.

They were charged under Arti­cle 178 part 3 — «Dis­clo­sure of a med­ical secret entail­ing seri­ous con­se­quences»

The fifth court ses­sion was held on Feb­ru­ary 25, after which the court adjourned until March 2. The next ses­sion was sched­uled for 10.30, where the par­tic­i­pants learned that the ver­dict would be pro­nounced the same day — at 16.00.

The day before, on March 1, Mask­ous­ki dis­trict court denied TUT.BY jour­nal­ists accred­i­ta­tion for the announce­ment of the ver­dict, refer­ing to the lack of seats in the court­room and «unfa­vor­able epi­demi­o­log­i­cal sit­u­a­tion». Inde­pen­dent media, in par­tic­u­lar Onlin­er and Bela­PAN, were banned from the pub­lic announce­ment of the ver­dict.

The press rep­re­sen­ta­tives — five peo­ple from state press only —  were the first to enter the court­room. The next were the fam­i­lies of Art­siom Sarokin and Kat­siary­na Bary­se­vich.

Diplo­mats from the EU Del­e­ga­tion to Belarus were also allowed in the court­room.

Basi­cal­ly, only fam­i­lies and rep­re­sen­ta­tives of accred­it­ed state-run media could go in. Friends and col­leagues had to stay behind.   A few of Kat­siary­na’s col­leagues were not allowed to enter the court­room because of their T‑shirts with her pho­to.

— And if some­one faints from lack of oxy­gen —  comes the ques­tion.

— There are many doc­tors here, — appar­ent­ly, col­leagues of Art­siom Sarokin are jok­ing.

The ver­dict was announced at 14.00. Kat­siary­na Bary­se­vich was sen­tenced to six months in a penal colony and a fine of 100 basic units, and Art­siom Sarokin to two years in prison sus­pend­ed for a year and a fine of 50 basic units. Art­siom was released in the court­room on his own recog­ni­zance, and Kat­siary­na remained in cus­tody. Both are not deprived of the right to prac­tice their pro­fes­sion. Their phones will be con­fis­cat­ed.

How did the tri­al go?

The «zero per mille» tri­al began on Fri­day, Feb­ru­ary 19. That day, more than 100 peo­ple came to sup­port the doc­tor and the jour­nal­ist, but only few of them were able to get into the court­room — most­ly fam­i­lies, diplo­mats and some col­leagues.

Pros­e­cu­tor Liud­mi­la Iva­nen­ka request­ed that the tri­al be held behind closed doors. The lawyers of the defen­dants, as well as Kat­siary­na and Art­siom them­selves, insist­ed on an open hear­ing, «so that the pub­lic knows what a jour­nal­ist and a doc­tor are being tried for.»

Nev­er­the­less, judge Svi­at­lana Ban­daren­ka decid­ed to close the hear­ing for the pub­lic — «in order to avoid dis­clo­sure of legal­ly pro­tect­ed med­ical secrets and pre­lim­i­nary inves­ti­ga­tion data», as well as because «the case mate­ri­als con­tain med­ical doc­u­ments, includ­ing pre­vi­ous­ly unpub­lished ones». The case was heard behind closed doors, which were guard­ed by uni­formed police­men and plain­clothes offi­cers.

On Feb­ru­ary 19, the court ques­tioned Ale­na Ban­daren­ka, Raman Ban­darenka’s moth­er. On the same day, as well as on Mon­day, Feb­ru­ary 22, the doc­tors of the Min­sk emer­gency hos­pi­tal gave evi­dence. Among them — the resus­ci­ta­tors who treat­ed the deceased Raman Ban­daren­ka, the doc­tor of lab­o­ra­to­ry diag­nos­tics who did a blood test for ethanol, and also, prob­a­bly, the doc­tor on duty who exam­ined Ban­daren­ka in the emer­gency room.

On Feb­ru­ary 23 — the third day of the tri­al — Vol­ha Kucharen­ka, Raman’s cousin, was sum­moned to the court. Before sign­ing a non-dis­clo­sure agree­ment, she said that all the time Raman was in the hos­pi­tal, his fam­i­ly spoke pub­licly about his con­di­tion. His moth­er, Ale­na Ban­daren­ka, gave per­mis­sion to dis­trib­ute this infor­ma­tion. Accord­ing to Vol­ha, Bary­se­vich con­tact­ed her before pub­lish­ing the «zero per mille» arti­cle. «She received offi­cial per­mis­sion from me to pub­lish this infor­ma­tion. My aunt repeat­ed­ly said that she was not going to keep it a secret.»

Kat­siary­na Bary­se­vich’s col­leagues, as well as the girl who was next to Raman Ban­daren­ka, before he was beat­en and tak­en away by unknown peo­ple, also tes­ti­fied at the tri­al that day. Accord­ing to her, Raman was sober that night, «there was no smell, I would have noticed it.»

On Feb­ru­ary 24, there were no wit­ness­es near the court­room — most like­ly, their inter­ro­ga­tion was over, and the court moved on to the tes­ti­mo­ny of the defen­dants, the study of doc­u­ments and the debate of the par­ties.

What hap­pened?

The crim­i­nal case against Kat­siary­na Bary­se­vich and Art­siom Sarokin was opened on Novem­ber 19, 2020. They were accused of dis­clos­ing med­ical secrets, which, accord­ing to the Pros­e­cu­tor Gen­er­al’s Office, entailed seri­ous con­se­quences. The max­i­mum penal­ty under this arti­cle is three years in prison. On Novem­ber 13, Kat­siary­na Bary­se­vich pub­lished an arti­cle, where she referred to med­ical doc­u­ments and a doc­tor’s com­ment, stat­ing that no ethanol had been found in Raman Ban­darenka’s blood. The top offi­cials claimed that the deceased was drunk.

Art­siom Sarokin, 37, is a Board cer­ti­fied anes­the­si­ol­o­gist of BSMP emer­gency hos­pi­tal… He worked the night when the beat­en Raman Ban­daren­ka was brought to hos­pi­tal, and pro­vid­ed him with an anes­thet­ic sup­port. Art­siom Sarokin has wife Natalia and three chil­dren: Mikhail, 9, Fio­dar, 6, and lit­tle Lia.

In April, TUT.BY jour­nal­ist Kat­siary­na Bary­se­vich will turn 37. She has been a jour­nal­ist for almost 15 years, spe­cial­iz­ing in legal issues: high-pro­file crim­i­nal cas­es and court pro­ceed­ings. Kat­siary­na repeat­ed­ly became the win­ner of many pro­fes­sion­al com­pe­ti­tions. In par­tic­u­lar, in 2015, the Pros­e­cu­tor Gen­er­al’s office award­ed her the win­ner’s diplo­ma «for pro­fes­sion­al­ism and jour­nal­is­tic skills». In 2020, the agency srat­ed a crim­i­nal case against her for her pro­fes­sion­al activ­i­ties.

Belaru­sian human rights com­mu­ni­ty have rec­og­nized Bary­se­vich and Sarokin as polit­i­cal pris­on­ers, and Amnesty Inter­na­tion­al has called them pris­on­ers of con­science.