Court directs civil activist for psychiatric expertise

10.02.2009. Tags: criminal persecution, elections-2008.
Source: RFE/RL.

Alexander Zhydkevich, doctor’s assistance in dentistry of Bychykha medical station, is accused of receiving bribes from patients. The criminal case was instigated under Article 433 of the Criminal Code as a result of a complaint in the complaint book, written by a citizen of Bychykha two months after medical treatment. The complaint was written after Alexander Zhydkevich became an independent observer at the local precinct during the latest parliamentary elections.

The trial started in the village of Bychykha in Haradok district, where the defendant lives. The plaintiff Uladzimir Kulik (who wrote the complaint) did not attend the trial. Alexander Zhydkevich considers the actions of the local prosecutor’s office as persecution for his public activism.

All in all, he is accused on four episodes. The accusation article envisages up to five years of imprisonment or personal restraint.

The necessity of medical examination of Alexander Zhydkevich was first stated during the investigation, but the prosecutor’s office refused to give the suspect the appointment card for the psychiatric hospital. During today’s sitting the judge Uladzimir Hladkou granted the appropriate petition of Zhydkevich’s lawyer Iryna Bernik.

A member of the For Freedom movement Alexander Haravy was admitted to the trial as a public representative of the defendant. He thinks that this trial is another hard test for the young man, who lost his mother and father in his childhood, was raised in an orphans’ asylum and now is persecuted for an attempt to defend his civil rights.