MINSK, August 12 (Itar-Tass) —— Belarusian human rights defenders have posted the names of pardoned participants in the Minsk riots of December 19, 2010.
“These include Dmitry Drozd, Artyom Gribkov, Sergei Kazakov and Andrei Protasenya. Most probably, the pardoned include Vladimir Loban and Alexander Klaskovsky. The latter information is being verified,” the human rights center Vyasna said on Friday. All of them were serving time at the Bobruisk penitentiary.
Meanwhile, the Belarusian Interior Ministry’s Prisons Department said they had not received the presidential ordinance pardoning the convicts.
President Alexander Lukashenko pardoned nine convicts in the Minsk riots case on August 11. The presidential press service said that the decision was based on request of the convicts, who had realized their illegal actions and apologized sincerely.
A total of 41 people were convicted of riots following the presidential election in Belarus. These include former presidential candidates Nikolai Statkevich, Dmitry Uss and Andrei Sannikov who were sentenced to 6, 5.5 and 5 years in custody correspondingly. The court passed a two-year suspended sentence with a two-year deferral on ex-presidential candidate Vladimir Neklyayev and a two-year suspended sentence on ex-candidate Vitaly Rymashevsky.