Sentence to Aksana Novikava Comes into Force

According to RFE/RL, the sentence to Aksana Novikava has come into force, and the pregnant woman can be sent to an open jail.

Aksana Novikava wanted to pass a complaint to the court, but the court workers refused to accept it, explaining that the sentence, 2,5 years in open jail for defamation of President, had already came into force.

Aksana states that she had filed a complaint before and it was registered. Then she came with the final complaint and was informed that nobody had complained and that the sentence had already come into force. Aksana Novikava thinks that the court did it deliberately to deprive her of the possibility to complain against the court verdict. She intends to solicit for consideration of the complaint despite of the end of the term for complaining due to the fact that the court has lost her first complaint.

In the chancellery of Minsk Kastrychnitski Borough Court RFE/RL correspondent was informed that Aksana didn’t file any complaint and familiarized with the minutes of the court sitting when the complaint term was over.

According to the law, a pregnant woman who also has a small child can’t be taken to open jail. However, the court documents have no information about Aksana’s pregnancy. Now Minsk City Court will have to consider the review complaint and upheld or set aside the verdict of the district court.