Darya Losik receives 24 months in jail for speaking out in husband’s defense

On January 19, Judge Mikalai Hryharovich of the Brest Regional Court sentenced Darya Losik to 24 months of imprisonment in a general-security penal colony. This exact jail term was requested by the state prosecutor Katsiaryna Pakala. The political prisoner was accused of “facilitating extremism” under Article 361-4 of the Criminal Code for an interview about her jailed husband that was given in April 2022 to Belsat TV, recognized as an extremist formation. Ihar Losik received 15 years in prison and is serving his time in a Navapolack colony.

While Darya and Ihar Losik are jailed, their four-year-old daughter is in the care of her grandparents. Credits: Nasha Niva

Darya Losik was arrested on the morning of October 18 after the police had searched the apartment. The woman and her daughter Paulina were still sleeping when police officers came to them. Losik was allowed to call her parents. Her mother quickly arrived at the scene, but the police did not let her into the apartment. She was later given a document that a search had been conducted. Before the trial, the political prisoner was kept for three months in Brest pre-trial detention center No. 7. She was charged with “facilitating extremism” and faced seven years of imprisonment.

The case stems from an interview given by Darya Losik to Belsat TV in which she “positioned herself as the wife of a political prisoner, and also gave a personal negative assessment of the state bodies whose competence includes criminal prosecution and justice”, according to the case files. It is also noted that “she said that her husband had not committed any criminal acts and had been convicted illegally. She encouraged relatives of other convicts to take her example.”

Losik fully admitted her guilt at the trial.