MMA fighter Alexey Kudin, who was extradited from Russia to Belarus, sentenced to 2.5 years in prison for resisting the police

MMA fighter Alexei Kudin, who was extradited from Russia to Belarus, was sentenced to 2.5 years in prison for resisting the police. About it informs human rights center “Vesna”.

This is a year less than the prosecutor requested.

Recall that Kudin was accused of resisting the police with the use of violence for actions on the square in Molodechno on August 9, 2020. Then Kudin went for a walk to the city center to find out something about the situation in the country, because at that time the Internet was blocked. There, several riot policemen attacked him with truncheons. The athlete knocked out two security officials.

“I raised my hands, showed that my palms were clean,” Kudin recalled that day. – A soldier from the second line shot gas at me. I managed to deviate to the side. I was hit on the head with a truncheon because of the shield. I got it five times. “

After the blow, Kudin, according to him, “turned around on the machine” and tore the shield out of the hands of a law enforcement officer. “This is the instinct of self-preservation, I have been doing martial arts for more than twenty years,” the athlete added.

With the back of his hand, Kudin hit the security officer in the cheekbone. “He falls down tight – just a knockout, – said the master of mixed martial arts. – At this moment I feel the second blow from the side. I manage to dodge and put a good side on it in the glass. Then I found out that I had given it to him so that I launched it into space. His helmet glass shattered. “

The athlete struck another riot policeman in the upper jaw and damaged a tooth. According to Kudin, the second security official “also fought out.” And the third riot policeman, after hitting the athlete, “fell under the bench.”

The next morning, the police came to the athlete’s home, shot him point-blank in front of his wife and two small children, severely beat him and took the detainee in handcuffs to the hospital. Before the court, under recognizance not to leave, he fled to Russia to hide from persecution, but in January he was detained in the Moscow region.

On July 21, Moscow handed over Kudin to the law enforcement agencies of Belarus, despite the ban of the European Court. The ECHR banned Russia from extraditing Kudin due to the fact that in Belarus he could be tortured and persecuted.

Alexey Kudin is a multiple world champion in kickboxing and Thai boxing and an honored master of sports. His manager, Artem Kharlanov, said that the fighter did not participate in the protests, but happened to be at the rally site by accident. “He did not take part in any protest actions, but simply happened to be among the eyewitnesses of what was happening between the protesters and the police,” he said. Several dozen honored athletes, including prize-winners of the Olympics, signed an appeal to the State Duma, the Prosecutor’s Office and the Olympic Committee with a request to grant Kudin political asylum.