Ukraine refuses to provide political refuge to a Belarusian Ihar Koktysh
He faces deportation to Belarus where he is accused of murder.
Belarusian civil activist and musician Ihar Koktysh has been denied in political refuge in Ukraine once again. The Ukrainian State Committee on nationalities and religions has taken such a decision. This is the second denial. Ihar Koktysh is going to claim it, as in the first case.
Ihar Koktysh was accused of murder in January 2001, “Nasha Niva”reminds. He spent 9 moths in the pre-trial detention center in Baranavichy before the court trial. Later he claimed he had been tortured in prison. Baranavichy district court considered him not guilty, and the Supreme Court left the verdict unchanged.
However, the General public prosecutor's office claimed this decision and sent the case for a re-consideration. Koktysh was in Ukraine at that moment. He was detained and put to a detention center in Symferopol in June 2007. He spent 2,5 years there. He was released under the demand of the Strasbourg court in February 2010. Previously, the Amnesty International considered him a prisoner of conscience, and the European Court forbade Ukraine to extradit him to Belarus.
