Minsk Pershamaiski Borough Court Sentences Anton Filimonau to 2,5 Years of Jail Conditionally

According to the press service of the Belarusian Association of Journalists

Minsk Pershamaiski Borough Court considered the criminal case that was brought against Anton Filimonau (son of the murdered journalist Veranika Charkasava) and his friends for forgery and market of the forged money. The court returned to the primary accusation - part 1 of article 221 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Belarus (the investigation changed the accusation to part 2, repeated forgery). Anton Filimonau was found guilty in production, keeping and market of forged money and sentenced to 2,5 years of conditional imprisonment with the probation term of 2 years, Dzmitry Drazdovich and Andrei Tamkovich were found guilty of keeping and market of forged money, Aleh Tarasenka - of market. They were sentenced to 2 years of conditional imprisonment with the same probation term.

The judge Larysa Fraliankova found no aggravating circumstances in the case. She also took into consideration the state of Anton’s health and the fact that all teenagers were tried for the first time and made open-hearted confession of their crime. The defendants were released, but had to give written undertaking not to leave the city. The judge warned them that they would have to regularly register at the police and can be imprisonment in the case they violated the registration order. She also said they had 10 days to appeal the verdict to Minsk City Court.

Anton’s grandparents Dyiana Charkasava and Uladzimir Mialeshka consider the court decision adequate, but say that the 2,5 months he had spent in the isolator had serious consequences for his health - he faced problems with thyroid and the heart and kidney illnesses he had exacerbated. That’s why in the end of April he would be hospitalized.