Entrepreneur Mikalai Autukhovich behind Bars again
According to RFE/RL
On 9 February 2005 the entrepreneur Mikalai Autukhovich didn’t come to the sitting of Hrodna Kastrychnitski Borough Court from Vaukavysk, where he was kept under home arrest. The policeman that was to have taken him to court found that Mr Autukhovich escaped. On 8 April the entrepreneur was detained in Minsk and taken to Vaukavysk. There he was sentenced to 5 days of arrest. After the end of the arrest term he was taken to Hrodna Kastrychnitski Borough Court. The court announced a break till 27 April in order to give Mr Autukhovich the possibility to familiarize with the materials of his criminal case. The judge Mikalai Rachynski also changed the restraint to him to imprisonment again. Mikalai Autukhovich will be kept in Hrodna prison.
The criminal case against Mikalai Autukhovich was brought in 2005. He was accused of evasion from payment of taxes, which resulted in an especially large loss to the state budget. During the period of the investigation he was kept in jail. There he started a hunger-strike of protest, demanding to change the restraint, first in Hrodna prison, then in the national hospital. He hungered for 74 days and lost 38 kilos. On 28 December he was finally transferred to home arrest.
