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The Minsk City Court continues to consider the case against 21-year-old Russian citizen Yegor Dudnikov. The prosecutor requested 11 years in prison for him, transfers BBC source. The trial is held behind closed doors.
Dudnikov voiced videos for the opposition Telegram channel. Yegor’s relatives claim that he did not participate in the protests, but only read the texts. He is charged under part 3 of article 130 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Belarus (“Inciting social hostility by a group of persons) and part 3 of article 361 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Belarus (“ Calls to actions aimed at causing harm to national security, committed using the global computer network Internet ”). The maximum sentence under these articles is 12 years.
Egor’s lawyer Anton Gashinsky reported “Novaya Gazeta” that after the sentence to Dudnikov, the defense intends to begin the extradition procedure.
“If the court pronounces a guilty verdict and appoints such a long term, it will clearly be disproportionate and unfair, based on the circumstances of the case, which are known to me, and based on the position of Yegor himself. When the verdict is passed, we will immediately begin the extradition procedure. It is not known about any adverse consequences from Dudnikov’s actions. Nobody announced this, nobody died. It is clearly unfair to receive 11 years of freedom for simple voice acting, ”the lawyer said.
Yegor Dudnikov was arrested in Minsk and placed in a KGB pre-trial detention center in May this year. He is accused of “organizing group actions that grossly violate public order and are associated with clear disobedience to the legitimate demands of government officials, which entailed disruption of the work of transport and enterprises” (part 1 of article 342 of the Criminal Code). Under Belarusian law, Dudnikov could face up to four years in prison. Now a new article has been added.
“This is the same as imprisoning a taxi driver for giving a ride to an oppositionist. He is a purely technical worker, was engaged in the voice acting of the videos that the opposition made after the August 2020 protests, ”Gashinsky said.
In July, the Belarusian state TV channel ONT showed the film, which contains footage of Dudnikov’s confession. It claims that Dudnikov was expelled from Belarus because of his participation in the 2020 protests, and then illegally returned to the country and became one of the administrators of the Telegram channel “Civil Self-Defense Units of Belarus” under the nickname “Evil Batts”.
The TV channel bases its film on data allegedly obtained by the KGB of Belarus together with the ONT reporters themselves. According to GosTV, Dudnikov was run by someone called Dis. The film claims that Dudnikov planned to create a similar telegram channel in Russia “in connection with the detention of Navalny.” Russian pro-government media then reported that the Russian “fully admitted his guilt.”
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