BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

13/07/2006

Belarus opposition leader jailed

MINSK, Belarus (AP) -- A Belarusian opposition leader was jailed for five and 1/2 years Thursday for organizing an unauthorized protest against the disputed election of authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko, his lawyer said.

Alexander Kozulin, one of two opposition politicians to run in the March 19 election, was not present in the Minsk courtroom to hear the sentencing as he was ordered out earlier, said lawyer Igor Rynkevich.

Kozulin, in his final comments in court, denounced his trial as "unfair" and called the judge "an executioner."

The 50-year-old former bureaucrat has been in jail since leading the protest march six days after the disputed vote, which officials said was soundly won by incumbent Lukashenko but was condemned as rigged by the opposition.

Riot police broke up that march, beating demonstrators with truncheons.

Western nations called the vote undemocratic and have since imposed travel and financial sanctions on Belarusian officials, including Lukashenko, and called for Kozulin's release.

Lukashenko, branded "Europe's last dictator," has ruled the isolated former Soviet nation of 10 million since 1994, quashing dissent and extending his time in office through votes widely considered illegitimate.

Kozulin's lawyer said the outcome of the trial violated judicial ethics and complained that his client had been kept the whole day in "inhuman conditions," in a small glass cage inside the court.

Source:

http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/europe/07/13/belarus.protest.ap/