BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

16/06/2006

Belarus activist gets three years for slandering Lukashenko

A Belarus court sentenced opposition activist Nikolai Razumov to three years in jail for slandering President Alexander Lukashenko, rights defender Vladimir Labkovich told AFP.

During the presidential campaign of opposition candidate Alexander Milinkevich, Razumov said that Lukashenko was involved in the disappearance of opposition politicians Viktor Gonchar, Anatoly Krasovsky and Yuri Zakharenko.

Razumov had been behind bars since March 14.

"Three years is not such a big thing, he could have been given five. But he is very sick, he has only one lung and one-third of a stomach, he has often been on the edge of life and death, and this may become his death sentence," activist Ales Shutov told AFP.

Hundreds of opposition activists have been arrested since Lukashenko, who has ruled this ex-Soviet republic since 1994, was re-elected to a third term in office in March after a much-disputed vote that sparked protests in the Belarussian capital Minsk.

AFP

Source:

http://www.turkishpress.com/news.asp?id=128819