A Belarusian court on Tuesday opened a trial against President Alexander Lukashenko’s main rival in the 2020 elections, Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, and other opposition leaders, for a battery of crimes including conspiracy.
The trial has started in Minsk without the presence of the five defendants. In addition to Tikhanovskaya, Belarusian authorities are also trying Maria Moroz, Pavel Latushko, Olga Kovalkova and Sergei Dilevski, linked to Lukahenko’s alternative opposition council.
Lawyers for several defendants have unsuccessfully applied at the first hearing to interrupt the trial, according to the official BelTA news agency. Tikhanovskaya has denounced on social networks that she is charged with more than ten crimes, but has downplayed the validity of the trial.
«It is not a trial, but a political revenge of Lukashenko», said in a video the opposition leader, exiled for fear of being arrested after the controversial elections of 2020, sprinkled with accusations of fraud at the hands of the regime.
«The dictator does not understand that it is not me that is the problem, but him,» she lamented. In this sense, he has accused the president of committing all kinds of abuses, including torture and extrajudicial executions, and of «taking the country to war» by the hand of his ally Vladimir Putin.
For Tikhanovskaya, it is «the dictator Lukashenko» and his allies who should end up sitting in a dock. «We will continue to fight to bring real justice back to Belarus, release all political prisoners and ensure that those who have committed crimes against the population are held accountable,» she promised.
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)
