BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

13/10/2006

Belarus Child: Giusto, Law Applied In Two Different Ways

(AGI) - Genoa, Oct 12 - The Giusto family is still wondering why government had to flex its muscles in the case of the little Maria not taking several sentences of the Italian Court of Appeal into consideration that "saved" a presumed killer (sentence October 10) and a man accused of fraud (sentence July 6) rejecting the requests for extradition made by Belarus. "The question to ask" the Giusto family said "is this one: why in the case of Maria Belarus was considered credible as guarantor of the rights of a girl that had been abused in that country and on the other hand was it considered not credible in the case of an adult accused of a serious crime?". The Giusto family is referring to the sentence of the Court of Appeal of July 6 this year. The Supreme Court writes: "The ample documentation allows for the affirmation that Belarus is a state in which human rights are violated (also in prisons), and this not only as described by Amnesty International, but based on official resolutions of the European Parliament (March 10 2005) according to which Belarus is the only European country that has no contractual relations with Europe because of its massive violations of human rights". Based on these considerations the Court of Appeal refused the extradition of a Belarus citizen, guilty of fraud, enough for forced labour for the Belarus law. "The extradition cannot be allowed" the sentence explained "when there is reason to believe that the convicted will be submitted to sentences that violate fundamental rights. And forced labour belongs to this category".

Source:

http://www.agi.it/english/news.pl?doc=200610132031-1256-RT1-CRO-0-NF11&page=0&id=agionline-eng.oggitalia