Charges have been dropped against Mikalai Mikhalkou, the head of Patriot club, and his son Yan, former defendants in the White Legion case.
Mikalai Mikhalkou, who was released from prison on May 18, has returned to his work and told colleagues that his son and him were cleared of charges, RFE/RL reports with reference to the Babruysk-based club.
Mikalai Mikhalkou was arrested on March 24 and was initially held in the KGB jail, where he was officially charged under Part 3 of Art. 293 of the Criminal Code. He was later transferred to the Interior Ministry’s detention center. He was one of the three persons who did not face additional charges of ‘forming an illegal armed group’.
Two pre-trial prisons of Minsk, the KGB prison and the Interior Ministry’s jail, continue to hold 16 people accused of ‘preparing riots’. Fifteen of them are also charged with creating of illegal armed group, to date only Syarhei Kuntsevich has not faced additional charges under Art. 287.
About 30 persons – former members of the defunct sports and patriotic organization White Legion, state-authorized sports and military club Patriot, Young Front activists as well as people who are not associated with any organizations, landed up in jail in March after Alyaksandr Lukashenka’s words about ‘armed militants’ posing a threat to Belarus.
