BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

09/09/2007

Belarusian opposition figure sentenced to 2 years in prison, wife told weeks later

MINSK, Belarus (AP) - A Belarusian court has sentenced an opposition leader to two years in prison for insulting the president and calling for revolution, an official said Sunday. The imprisoned man's wife said she had not been told of the Aug. 1 verdict until last week.

Former lawmaker Andrei Klimov, who has been in and out of jail since he helped lead a 1996 drive to impeach authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko, was convicted and sentenced by a Minsk court Aug. 1, said a spokesman for the city prosecutor's office, Oleg Agafonov.

The charges stemmed from articles posted on the Internet.

"The authorities closed the trial and the verdict became known only after a month," said Klimov's wife, Tatyana Leonovich-Klimova. She said she learned of the sentence in connection with an effort to visit her husband, who has been jailed since his April arrest. She said he had suffered a heart attack while in custody.

Lukashenko has been in power in the ex-Soviet republic of 10 million people since 1994, quashing dissent, silencing opponents and prolonging his rule through votes regarded in the West as illegitimate. The United States and European Union have imposed sanctions on him and top officials over their treatment of opponents.

Klimov, 41, was a member of the parliament that Lukashenko disbanded in 1996. He was arrested in 1998, the day he was expected to circulate a report by members of the disbanded parliament on violations of constitutional norms, and served four years of a six-year prison term following a conviction on what he said were politically motivated charges of fraud and misappropriation of funds.

In June 2005, Klimov was sentenced to 18 months in a detention facility after he was found guilty of organizing a protest in which demonstrators called for Lukashenko's resignation.

Source:

http://www.live-pr.com/en/belarusian-opposition-figure-sentenced-to-r1048139426.htm