Belarusian opposition figure handed 15 years in prison, reports State media

By Burc Eruygur

ISTANBUL (AA) — Belarusian opposition figure Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya was sentenced in abstentia on Monday to 15 years in prison.

According to the state news agency Belta, a court in the capital Minsk convicted Tsikhanouskaya and four other opposition figures of trying to seize state power in "an unconstitutional way."

The report noted that the city court also found the opposition figures, who included Maria Moroz, Olga Kovalkova, Sergey Dylevsky, and Pavel Latushka, guilty of "creating an extremist group" and making public calls aimed at "harming the national security of Belarus."

It said Tsikhanouskaya was also charged with "treason to the state," while Latushka was charged with “abuse of power” and “taking a bribe on a large scale.”

"15 years of prison. This is how the regime 'rewarded' my work for democratic changes in Belarus. But today, I don't think about my own sentence. I think about thousands of innocents, detained & sentenced to real prison terms. I won't stop until each of them is released," Tsikhanouskaya said on Twitter in response to the verdict.

Separately, Latushka also commented on his 18-year sentence, saying vowing to "continue to fight" alongside "fellow Belarusians."

Tsikhanouskaya lives in exile in Lithuania after having fled the country following the 2020 Belarusian presidential election, in which President Alexander Lukashenko was reelected to a sixth term. His opponents claimed the election was rigged.