On June 17, Brest district court arrested blogger Alyaksandr Kabanau, the press secretary of Svyatlana Tsikhanouskaya, for 15 days. He is accused of participating in an “unauthorized mass event” (Article 23.34 of the Code of Administrative Offences), “Viasna” reports.
Kabanau was detained back on June 15 and placed in a temporary detention center of Leninski district police department of Brest, where he stayed until the trial. At the next day’s meeting, he filed a petition for the participation of a lawyer in the trial, so judge Syarhei Maruchek announced a break until June 17.
The blogger received a call from the polyclinic [the blogger had previously been diagnosed with coronavirus – belsat.eu] and invited for some procedures.
“Alyaksandr suspected that it could be a provocation, as the test was already negative. So I went with him, made sure he got to the clinic safely. There he refused the procedures, and we went to the store to buy food,” his driver said.
When they approached the store, Kabanau’s driver received a call from the traffic police. He was told he had got into an accident and fled the scene. While he was dealing with the traffic police, Alyaksandr was ‘hunted down’ and detained.
The blogger is accused of making a speech during the “pigeon feeding” in Brest on May 7.
Immediately after the trial, Kabanau was returned to the temporary detention facility. It is still unknown whether he was able to meet with his lawyer; another one was assigned to him in the detention center. There was no detention record in the case — only a copy. Thus, the court made a decision to correct the identified substantial procedural violations.
