Mikalai Dzenisevich
Date of birth: 21 December 1967
Date of detention: 21 April 2021
Charges indicted:
Art. 342 of the Criminal Code — Organization and preparation of actions that grossly violate public order, or active participation in them
Art. 364 of the Criminal Code — Violence or threat of violence against an employee of the internal affairs bodies
Art. 218 of the Criminal Code — Intentional destruction or damage to property committed in a generally dangerous manner or causing damage on a large scale
Sentence: 4 years
Penalty: imprisonment in a general-security penal colony
Judge: Dzmitryi Lukashevich
Prosecutor: Valeryia Taratynka
Prison: Penal colony No. 2
Mikalai Dzenisievich is a Minsk resident convicted for participation in a march on 18 October 2020.
The man was charged under three articles of the Criminal Code: part 1 of article 342 (active participation in actions that grossly violate public order); part 1 of article 218 (intentional damage to property); article 364 (threat of violence against a law enforcement officer). Mikalai was accused of throwing stones, pieces of asphalt and other objects at security officers' vans that carried antiterrorist police. These actions were qualifies as a threat of violence against law enforcement officers and damage to property worth 5,728 Belarusian rubles. The victims in the case were 13 antiterrorist police officers.
At the trial Dzenisevich pleaded guilty on all counts, but explained that he had made two symbolic throws at the vans that were passing by to "draw attention and show his indignation at the excessive use of violence against peaceful protesters." As a result, Judge Dzmitry Lukashevich sentenced Mikalai to four years in a minimum-security penitentiary.
