Will Lukashenka amnesty Ales Bialiatski?
22.01.2014 | Politics
Lukashenka claims he was unaware of the paid-off Bialiatski’s debt.
Aliaksandr Lukashenka tasked Aliaksandr Radzkou, first deputy head of the Presidential Administration, with finding out whether the information voiced by BelaPAN Director General Ales Lipai during a meeting with Belarusian media leaders on January 21 was true. Mr. Lipai asked why the 51-year-old Bialiatski could not be freed considering the fact that the amount that he was ordered to pay was paid off with donations a long time ago, naviny.by informs.
“This is a serious argument. This is not about politics and the position of Bialiatski himself. I swear I did not and do not know him,” Mr. Lukashenka said, adding that paying taxes “is a sacred thing.”
If Mr. Bialiatski’s debt has really been paid, he may be considered for eligibility for amnesty, according to the Belarusian leader.
Let us recall that Ales Bialiatski, chairman of an unregistered Belarusian human rights organization “Viasna” (Spring) and vice president of the International Federation for Human Rights, was arrested in Minsk on August 4, 2011. On November 24, 2011, he was sentenced to four and a half years in prison on a charge of large-scale tax evasion. The charge stemmed from information about his bank accounts abroad, which was thoughtlessly provided by authorities in Lithuania and Poland under interstate legal assistance agreements. During his trial, Mr. Bialiatski insisted that the money transferred by various foundations to his bank accounts abroad had been intended to finance Viasna's activities and therefore could not be viewed as his income subject to taxation.
On January 18, 2012, Mr. Bialiatski’s wife, Natalia Pinchuk, transferred a total of 757,526,717 roubles ($90,400 at the time) to the account of a Minsk district court to pay all what her husband had been ordered to pay in his criminal case, including his alleged tax debt, penalties and litigation costs.
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