Trial of human rights defender Andrei Bandarenka started in Minsk

Human rights activist is charged of malicious hooliganism. The article presupposes up to 10 years in prison. Bandarenka publicly apologized before the victims.

The trial of Belarusan human rights activist Andrei Bandarenka has started in Minsk.

The director of the Platform Innovation human rights group was arrested on April 1 and charged with hooliganism, RFE/RL informs.

Bandarenka is suspected of assaulting people in three different cases. He denies the charges.

If found guilty, Bandarenka may face up to 10 years in jail.

The incident happened when Bandarenka and his friend were walking to the activist's apartment in the early hours of March 27 after drinking alcohol in a restaurant, BelaPAN recalls. Inside the apartment building they met Tatsiana Radzivon, a neighbor of Bandarenka, who appeared to be drunk and offered to keep them company. As Bandarenka tried to prevent the woman from entering his apartment, she bit his finger and would not let go, leading him to use force.

It was Bandarenka who called the police. As he and his friend, as well as Radzivon and Natalia Travulka, her mother were staying in a police station, the women started insulting the men. Radzivon tried to photograph Bandarenka using her cell phone's camera and the man kicked the handset out of her hands. According to Bandarenka, when Travulka ran up to him he accidentally kicked her in the face.

Radzivon hit him several times and hurled verbal abuse afterward.

Bandarenka also stands accused of punching a certain Yavorski in the face during an argument outside a restaurant in Minsk on February 5. The man did not attend Tuesday's hearing.

Bandarenka, who turned 41 on April 14, was arrested by officers of the Kastrychnitski district police department in Minsk on April 1 and has since been held in Detention Center No. 1 on Valadarskaha Street in the Belarusan capital city.

His group, Platform Innovation, was created in 2011. It has been involved in defending rights of inmates in Belarusan prisons.

The Investigative Committee said in a statement on April 12 that Bandarenka had committed “hooliganism involving violence” on three occasions and had been charged with criminal offenses.

Speaking on the opening day of his trial in the Kastrychnitski District Court in Minsk, the leader of Platform Innovation apologized to Tatsiana Radzivon and her mother Natalia Travulka, but said that his actions constituted no hooliganism.