10 Jan 2023 20:27

Belarusian authorities reject Russian citizen Sapega's pardon petition

MINSK. Jan 10 (Interfax) - The authorities in Belarus have refused to pardon Russian citizen Sofia Sapega, her lawyer Anton Gashinsky told Interfax.

"I can confirm this information," Gashinsky said, responding to a question posed by Interfax on Tuesday.

On May 23, 2021, Sapega was returning from a vacation in Greece together with Belarusian opposition journalist Roman Protasevich. The Belarusian authorities forced the plane to land due to an alleged bomb threat. The plane landed at the Minsk airport, where Sapega and Protasevich were detained.

Protasevich is a co-founder of the Nexta Telegram channel, declared extremist in Belarus, and an editor of the Belarus Golovnogo Mozga Telegram channel, also designated as extremist. Sapega said in a video filmed by law enforcement officers after her detention that she was editing materials published on the Telegram channel about Belarusian law enforcers, called the Black Book of Belarus.

In May 2022, Sapega was sentenced to six years in a penitentiary on counts of incitement to enmity and hostility and illegal gathering or dissemination of information about private lives,

resulting in harm to the rights, liberties and statutory interests of the victims.

The court also ordered the defendant to pay 167,500 Belarusian rubles ($65,000) in damages to 238 victims.

In June 2022, Sapega filed an appeal for a pardon with Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko. The appeal was handed over to the administration of the Gomel Women's Penitentiary where she is serving her sentence.