Myachyslau Hryb: “State intends to seize money from relatives of convicted”

• 26.06.2008, 11:08

The Internal Ministry of Belarus will appeal about another amnesty dedicated to the date when Belarus was liberated from the German invaders. Why amnesty has become so often in Belarus? Why the focus is made on settling payment obligations to the state by prisoners?

Mechyslau Hryb, a retired lieutenant general of police, answers questions of Radio Svaboda:

The society met the initiative of Minister Navumau exceptionally cool. Has an amnesty become an everyday occurrence for today’s Belarus?

People shouldn’t be imprisoned for petty, insignificant crimes. Then there won’t be such a necessity to appeal for an amnesty for two times a year. But fundamentally, amnesty is needed. It is necessary not to change the character of a person who had been imprisoned for petty offences, into a character of a lifelong prisoner. In order not to cripple a person, who was in prison and understood he had done a wrong thing (even when the sentence is just), why cannot he be amnestied?

However Minister Navumau links conditional release of prisoners with settling all payment obligations to the state and victims. But where these people are to find money?

- Almost every convict has debts to the state. They include lawyer’s services and many other things… There are a number of services they cannot pay for. And prisoners can sit for dozens of years unable to settle accounts, as they have no wages.

It seems to me that the state plans to collect money from prisoners’ relatives. If you want me to be released, find money, borrow money, and later we shall square accounts with them. Firstly, with the state. Complainants are mentioned here as well, but to my mind, it doesn't hold water. Our state is always short of money, and there has always been and there will always be a deficit.