Complaint of Brest customs officers registered at UN Human Rights Committee
22 former inspectors of the “Western
Buh” customs office and 7 former mechanics of the terminal of the
“Westauto” enterprise filed individual communications to this international
structure back in March 2011. They
pointed at violation of their right to fair trial.
According to the human rights defender Raman Kisliak, the complaint was
registered on 24 October 2012, but the official information about this has been
received only recently. Kisliak reminded that in 2004-2005 the authors of the
complaint had been sentenced to various terms of imprisonment on charges in
abuse of their office powers and complicity in evasion from the payment of
taxes by a group of individuals. The accusation was grounded on the cases when
the customs officers registered the transit of heavy-load cars, which were not
transported to Poland.
Later the convicts were also sentenced to pay from 80 million to 2 billion
rubles on a civil lawsuit.
As a result of numerous appeals to the General Prosecutor's Office an
investigative group was created, according to the conclusions of which only 10
convicts participated in the crime, the Supreme Court refused to resume the
court proceedings in connection with the new circumstances.
The authors of the complaint to the UN Human Rights Committee are of the
opinion that the trial did not correspond to the criteria of independence and
impartiality. That's whey demand to recognize the violation of their right to a
fair trial, guaranteed by Article 14 of the International Covenant on Civil and
Political Rights.
