Mikalai Bankou
sentenced to 4 years of imprisonment
Date of birth: 18 January 1971
Date of detention: 18 January 2023
Charges indicted:
Art. 361-2 of the Criminal Code — Financing the activities of an extremist group
Sentence: 4 years
Penalty: imprisonment in a general-security penal colony
Prison sentence start date: 3 November 2023
Judge: Sviatlana Bandarenka
Prison: Penal colony No. 1
Mikalai Bankou is a former lecturer at the Communications Department of the Belarusian State University of Informatics and Radioelectronics. The department trains personnel officers for the Armed Forces and law enforcement agencies of Belarus.
He was arrested on January 18, 2023. At first, he was arrested on administrative charges. Later, he was re-arrested as a defendant in a criminal case.
Bankou was charged under Article 361-2 of the Criminal Code ('Financing of extremist activities') and taken into custody. He was placed in remand prison #1 in Minsk.
On July 28, 2023, in the Minsk City Court, Judge Sviatlana Bandarenka sentenced Mikalai Bankou to four years of imprisonment in a general-security penal colony.
