Lawtrend appeals to Attorney General's Office after publication in pro-government paper

Legal Transformation Centre “Lawtrend” addressed its appeal to the Attorney General's Office in relation with the published materials of Andrei Haidukau’s criminal case in SB. Belarus Today newspaper.

Lawtrend voiced its concern in relation to the spread in newspaper’s publications of information presumably taken from the materials of the criminal case or during the secretive trial, before the sentence legally came into force.

Let us briefly recall the details of the case as described by BelaPAN. On July 1, a judge of the Vitsiebsk Regional Court sentenced Mr. Haidukau, currently 23, to one and a half years in prison, finding him guilty of attempting to “establish contacts with foreign intelligence agencies without signs of high treason,” an offense penalized under a recently adopted appendix to the Criminal Code’s Article 356. The author of the letter introduces himself as a leader of an unregistered organization called the Union of Young Intellectuals, which "has existed since 2006, uniting intellectual youths of different interests, professions and ages," including university students, psychologists, lawyers, and IT experts.

"At present, human rights and constitutional norms are violated in Belarus on a regular basis, which makes democracy impossible," the letter says. "The opposition is inefficient. It has been routed; prominent leaders are not trusted by citizens, and the financial assistance they receive from Europe and the United States to fight against dictatorship and build democracy is spent inefficiently and inappropriately. We believe that the way out is to train young leaders, conduct information political campaigns and raise citizens` awareness of human rights, which will eventually result in the fall of the dictatorship."

The author asks the CIA for advisory and financial assistance with conducting "information political campaigns." The letter says that activists of the Union of Young Intellectuals can travel to Lithuania to meet with a representative of the CIA. Such a meeting may also take place in Belarus, if the CIA considers this safe, the letter says. The author says that he would like his letter to be sent to the office of the CIA in Lithuania, and that the office should encrypt its reply and send it to the author`s email address instead of writing back to the address provided on the envelope.

The letter is quoted in full in a caustic article by Igar Dolin, who claims that "at the end of last year," Mr. Haidukau had given the message to a friend traveling to Germany and asked him to mail it from abroad. Mr. Dolin says that the newspaper will continue to explore "this unique story" in its next issues.

The press office of the Committee for State Security (KGB) replied that although the agency knew about Mr. Dolin`s article, it had not released any letters by Mr. Haidukau to him.

Mr. Haidukau was initially charged with high treason, which carries penalties ranging from up to 15 years in prison to the death sentence.

The fifth-year student at the chemical engineering and technology department of Polatsk State University and fitter in charge of instrumentation at Naftan in Navapolatsk was arrested in Vitsiebsk on November 8, 2012.  KGB spokesman Aliaksandr Antanovich announced on November 13 that Mr. Haidukau had "gathered and passed political and economic information on the instructions of a foreign intelligence agency," and that he had been caught in the act of making a dead drop.

Mr. Haidukau’s trial began on June 12 and was held behind closed doors. His lawyer was prohibited from disclosing any information about the case against Mr. Haidukau or his trial.

In early July, the Belarus version of Russia’s tabloid Komsomolskaya Pravda reported with reference to Aliaksandr Sidorovich, first deputy prosecutor of the Vitsiebsk region that Mr. Haidukau attempted to contact the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and offer to pass sensitive information to it.

In August 2012, Mr. Haidukau wrote a letter to the CIA, which was intercepted by the KGB. The agency replied to Mr. Haidukau’s letter, misleading him into believing that he had been contacted by the CIA, said Mr. Sidorovich.

According to Aleh Barysevich, a senior investigator with the KGB’s Vitsiebsk regional office, the agency spent three months playing a “counterintelligence game” with the man. “We had to understand whether he was indeed ready to commit a crime or these were just some unfulfilled adolescent fancies,” he was quoted as saying. “He pursued the specific goal of establishing cooperation [with the CIA] and acting in the interests of this secret service.”

The KGB accused Mr. Haidukau of having offered to infect computers at Naftan with spyware. Mr. Haidukau even made a dead drop in Vitsiebsk to collect his payment from the CIA, Mr. Barysevich said. The young man became aware that his letter had never reached the CIA only a few days after his arrest, said Mr. Barysevich.

Human rights fighters stress a whole number of factors: public response the criminal case got, lack of objective and overall information because of the secretive trial, lack of sentence that is legally in force; inadmissibility of procedural rights, including presumption of innocence and equality of parties to the criminal case; inadmissibility of pressure on the court; the important role Mass Media play in providing the publicity with objective and full information.

In this regard Legal Transformation Centre finds it necessary to stop spread of one-sided information before the Haidukau’s sentence legally comes into force. Besides, the authors of the appeal demand to establish equal opportunities for Andrei Haidukau’s defence, providing it with the possibility to inform the society about the position of Haidukau’s lawyers and in regard with the interests of justice and the necessity to save the secret guarded by law. And finally, Lawtrend asks to perform public prosecutor's control of the circumstances in which the materials of the case were disclosed.

“We expect that the attorney’s office is going to act in compliance with the law”, - stated Aliaksei Kazliuk, Lawtrend’s lawyer, in the talk with the EuroBelarus Information service.  He also recalled that on August 27 the court will consider Andrei Haidukau’s appeal.