Sannikov refutes statement of Interior Ministry
- 31.01.2012, 11:53
On January 30 the lawyer was allowed to hold a one-hour conversation with a presidential candidate Andrei Sannikov.
“As I have understood from the words of the lawyer, after my press-conference attitude to Sannikov did not change for the better or for the worse,” said the wife of the politician Iryna Khalip.
We remind that on January 24 Khalip was granted a meeting with her husband after a 4-months’ pause. On the next day she called a press-conference, where she informed that after tortures Sannikov had to write a petition for clemency addressed to Lukashenka. As said by Khalip, the petition was signed on November 20, during Sannikov’s transition detention in Mahilyou prison. As on December 23 Lukashenka publicly stated that Sannikov had not addressed a petition for clemency to him, Khalip fears that her husband would not be released from the colony, and he goes in danger of his life.
“Andrei said that his situation remains unchanged. He is very thankful to me for spreading information about him, as I asked the lawyer to tell him about that. He also confirmed the date when the petition was written – November 20, so they should not try to spread speculations. I also asked the lawyer to tell about the person who had started a hunger strike of protest, Andrei Mikalaeu, and Andrei asked to tell him to stop the hunger strike. In such situation Mikalaeu and all of us should guard our health for the sake of the future struggle,” Khalip said.
In connection with the events with Andrei Sannikov, and exactly the fact that he had written a petition for clemency to Lukashenka on November 20, and tortures, threats and inhuman treatment, the Belarusian Helsinki Committee addressed the Prosecutor General’s Office with a request to investigate the facts voiced by Iryna Khalip at the extraordinary press-conference.
“We attach great significance to the facts of tortures, that is why we ask the Prosecutor General’s Office to check all the facts mentioned by Andrei Sannikov’s wife Iryna Khalip, and to respond to our document in case some violations had really taken place. Now we are also engaged in the case of Zmitser Bandarenka, a political prisoner, whose crutch had been taken away, who is forced to work and placed in the conditions equal with other prisoners, though he had undergone a surgery,” the lawyer of the BHC Harry Pahanyajla said.