Belarusian Supreme Court dismisses ex-presidential candidate Tikhanovskaya's appeal against 15-year jail term

MINSK. June 20 (Interfax) - The Supreme Court of Belarus has dismissed an appeal lodged by former presidential candidate Svetlana Tikhanovskaya against the sentence handed down by a lower court, the court's press service said on Tuesday.

"According to the appeal ruling of the judicial board for criminal cases of the Supreme Court of the Republic of Belarus, the sentence handed down by the Minsk City Court on March 6, 2023, [...] was left unchanged, and the appeal was dismissed. The sentence has entered into force," the press service said.

On March 6, the Minsk City Court sentenced Tikhanovskaya to 15 years' imprisonment in a general security penitentiary. The other defendants in the case were former Belarusian Culture Minister Pavel Latushko and Belarusian opposition Coordination Council members Maria Moroz (who led Tikhanovskaya's presidential election campaign), Olga Kovalkova, and Sergei Dylevsky. The court sentenced Latushko to 18 years and Moroz, Kovalkova, and Dylevsky to 12 years in prison.

The court found all of them guilty of plotting to seize power by unconstitutional methods, establishing and leading an extremist group, making public calls for seizing power, and other actions aimed at harming Belarus's national security, and inciting social enmity and hatred.

Tikhanovskaya ran in the Belarusian presidential election in 2020 after the Belarusian CEC denied registration to the campaign of her husband, Sergei Tikhanovsky, who was later detained and sentenced to 18 years in prison. While serving his term, Sergei Tikhanovsky was also sentenced this year to an additional one year and six months in prison for "maliciously disobeying the requirements of the correctional facility's administration."

The official results announced by the CEC stated that Tikhanovskaya came in second with 10% of the vote. Alexander Lukashenko, who has served as president of Belarus since 1994, was declared the winner. According to the CEC, Lukashenko won 80.1% of the vote.

The opposition considered the election outcome to be rigged. Mass protests against the election outcome continued in Belarus for more than half a year. A number of EU members recognized Tikhanovskaya as the leader of Belarusian opposition forces.

The Belarusian State Security Committee included Tikhanovskaya, Pavel Latushko, a member of the Presidium of the Coordination Council of the Belarusian opposition, and 15 other Belarusian citizens in the list of entities and individuals involved in terrorist activity.