Aleh Shvayko
children's football coach, sentenced to 2 years of imprisonment
Former prisoner
Date of birth: 6 May 1986
Date of detention: 4 November 2022
Charges indicted:
- Art. 342 of the Criminal Code — Organization and preparation of actions that grossly violate public order, or active participation in them
Sentence: 2 years
Penalty: imprisonment in a general-security penal colony
Prison sentence start date: 26 May 2023
Date of release: 24 July 2024
Judge: Lidziya Tselitsa
Groups: Athletes
Cases: Protests in Minsk
Aleh Shvaiko is a children's football coach. He was detained on November 4, 2022, and sentenced to 10 days of administrative arrest. Later Shvaiko was transferred to a remand prison as a defendant in a criminal case under Art. 342 of the Criminal Code ('Active participation in group actions grossly disrupting public order').
It is known that Aleh Shvaiko worked with a women's team in the Minsk football club. He actively expressed his position regarding the events in Belarus in 2020. At the end of 2021, the coach left the Minsk football club. In 2022, he was serving a trial period at another school. In October 2022, Aleh Shvaiko signed a contract with a private football school. He was presented as a new U-9—U-11 coach on social networks on October 20, literally a couple of weeks before his arrest.
The case of the police prisoner was heard in the Maskoŭski District Court of Minsk. On March 13, 2023, Judge Lidziya Tselitsa sentenced Aleh Shvaiko to 24 months of imprisonment in a general-security penal colony. Soon he was transferred to Prison #4 in Mahilioŭ.
On May 26, 2023, the Minsk City Court considered the appeal of the political prisoner. Judge Valiantsina Ziankevich upheld the verdict and dismissed the complaint.
On June 15, 2023, Aleh Shvaiko was transferred from remand prison #4 in Mahilioŭ to penal colony #2 in Babrujsk, Mahilioŭ region.
