Young opposition activist Artur Finkevich sentenced to 18 months in prison

A district judge in Mahilyow on December 20 sentenced Artur Finkevich, a leader of a youth opposition group called Malady Front, to 18 months in a minimum security correctional institution.
Judge Natallya Krashkina of the city’s Kastrychnitski District Court found the young man guilty of “evasion of the service of a restricted freedom sentence” under Article 415 of the Criminal Code for alleged misconduct.
Arrested on January 30, 2006, Mr. Finkevich was sentenced to a two-year "restricted freedom" term in May 2006 on a "malicious hooliganism" charge for spray-painting "We want a new one (instead of Alyaksandr Lukashenka)!" on a building.
Mr. Finkevich started serving his restricted freedom term in Mahilyow in late June 2006. In October 2007, he was subjected to criminal prosecution on misconduct charges and put in Mahilyow’s number 4 pre-trial jail.

The public prosecutor demanded that the accused be sentenced to two years in prison, whereas Article 415 carries a maximum penalty of three years’ imprisonment. He insisted that the defendant had ignored internal regulations and therefore received two official warnings that he might be prosecuted criminally for that. Nonetheless, Mr. Finkevich continued breaking the correctional institution’s internal regulations with no mitigating circumstances, the prosecutor said.
The young man was accused of five counts of violating internal regulations, including being late to work and from work and being in a state of alcoholic intoxication. He explained at the trial that he had had to take alcohol-containing medications.

In his pre-imposition statement, Mr. Finkevich partially admitted his guilt and asked the judge to sentence him to six months in prison, the minimum possible penalty under Article 415, and take into consideration his difficult family situation and poor health as mitigating circumstances.
On completion of the trial, some 40 young opposition activists, who had arrived to support their associate, gathered at the entrance to the courthouse, chanting, “Long Live Belarus!” and “Freedom to Finkevich!”

“This trial is yet another attempt to intimidate Belarusian youths, but they won’t manage to break or stop us,” said Pavel Sevyarynets, a founder of Malady Front.

If it had not been for his new criminal prosecution, Mr. Finkevich would have been released 10 days ago, as the time that he spent in detention centers would have been counted toward his sentence.

He was held in jail between February 1 and May 10, 2006. Since each day spent in pretrial detention by a person sentenced to restricted freedom counts as two, his actual term was less than one year and six months.

naviny.by