Nobel Peace Prize winner Ales Bialiatski, a well-known Belarusian human rights activist, could face up to 12 years in prison for money smuggling, his NGO Viasna said on Monday.
Bilyatsky, who has been imprisoned in Belarus since July 2021, appears in this case along with two other arrested assistants and a third in exile abroad, Viasna reports.
“They face a prison sentence of 7 to 12 years,” the statement said.
Bilyatsky and his accomplices are accused of transporting “a large amount of money as part of an organized group” across the Belarusian border and of “financing group activities that seriously violate public order.”
According to Viasna, no date has yet been set for the start of the trial.
It is noteworthy that this year Bilyatsky won the Nobel Peace Prize thanks to his fight for human rights together with the Russian Memorial Center and the public organization Ukrainian Center for Civil Liberties.
Belarus condemned the award of this award to him, calling it a “politicized decision.”
