Old man was shot in the chest: the retiree was sentenced to 1.5 years for calling the police.

Pump-action shotgun against an imaginary knife.

The retiree called the police and asked to prosecute Lukashenka for insulting Victor Babariko. Shortly after that, the riot police broke into his flat. The older man was shot in the chest with a pump-action gun.

As a result, he was sentenced to 18 months of house arrest for so-called resistance and threatening with a knife.

The story is made by the center of human rights “Viasna”.

Demanded to prosecute Lukashenka.

In the evening on June 12, Sergey Kuznetsov came home from work and was making dinner. He turned on the TV. It was the time of the evening news on ONT. And there he heard that Alexander Lukashenko called presidential candidate Viktor Babariko a “villain”. It happened when Lukashenka paid a working visit to Vitebsk region. Sergei Kuznetsov was outraged by this and called the police. He said that the president was supposed to be prosecuted for insulting Viktor Babariko. But the police didn’t listen to the older man and quickly hung up the phone. Sergei Kuznetsov called the police station a second time and said: “We will destroy Lukashenka for this election campaign” and added some obscene language.

In two hours, an investigative-operational group came to Kuznetsov’s apartment. The head of the Zavodskoy district police department of Minsk, Yevgeny Zyuzenok and four riot police officers used a hydraulic press to break down the doors to the retiree’s flat. The reason for such attention was the “insult to the head of state.”

The case was examined by the judge of the Zavodskoy district of Minsk, Elena Kaptsevich. The court session’s monitoring was carried out by activist of the human rights organization “Vesna” Alexey Loiko. The trial lasted one day.

Four riot police officers and a shot in the chest.

The information below is from the criminal case file:

The accusations to Sergei Kuznetsov stated that “On June 12 of this year, at about 9:42 pm, he was under the influence of alcohol and deliberately intending to obstruct legal activities, forced to change the nature of such activities, out of revenge for the fulfillment of legal actions of officers of the operational-combat platoon link on duty to the senior to lieutenant Polyukhovich, sergeant Gil, warrant officers Tsibulko and Kovalchuk, he threatened to use violence against employees of the internal affairs bodies.”

Riot police officers Polyukhovich, Gil, Tsibulko and Kovalchuk were recognized as victims in the case. According to the human rights activist from “Vesna”, riot police officers were present in the courtroom, but they testified with their heads down, wearing hats and masks and trying to hide their faces.

The riot police officers claimed that they received an order to go to the place of residence of Sergei Kuznetsov because the defendant threatened and insulted the head of state.

They started to break down the doors because Sergei Kuznetsov didn’t open the door to the apartment himself for an inspection due to the threats against the president. At the trial the riot policemen claimed that Kuznetsov, while they were breaking into the doors to his apartment, threatened them with a knife at a distance of 1–1.5 meters, saying “Go away or I will cut you.” They said that the retiree was stepping towards the riot policemen and swinging with a kitchen knife. According to riot police officers, this was the basis to shoot Sergei Kuznetsov in the chest with a pump-action shotgun with a flash-noise cartridge. At that moment, the retiree was staying in front of the police officers in his underwear.

There is no knife or threat in the video.

Sergei Kuznetsov did not claim guilty in the crime, saying that he did not express any police threats. Judge Elena Kaptsevich asked each victim whether they perceived the threat as real, whether they experienced moral and mental suffering because of the accused’s knife demonstration.

As human rights activist Aleksey Loiko notes, during the study of the written materials of the criminal case, interesting facts became known:

-forensic-genomic examination showed that there were no fingerprints of the accused on the knife, the demonstration of which allegedly served as the reason for firing a flash-noise cartridge in the chest of Sergei Kuznetsov;

-the investigative experiment showed that staying behind the closed kitchen door, the accused really could not hear the doorbell;

-during the investigation of the criminal case against the accused, a decision was issued for him to be prosecuted with administrative responsibility under Art. 23.4 of the Administrative Code for disobeying the lawful actions of riot police officers. Sergey Kuznetsov was arrested for 7 days, which have not yet been served;

-during the criminal case investigation, decisions were issued to refuse the initiation of a criminal case under Part 2 of Art. 366 of the Criminal Code (threat of violence committed against the president) and art. 368 of the Criminal Code (public insult to the president).

Also, there was a video shown in court, where everyone could see breaking the door to the apartment and the arrest of Sergei Kuznetsov. According to the human rights activist, the video shows how riot policemen in civilian clothes, bulletproof vests with the words “police” on them and in helmets break open the doors to the retiree’s apartment.

Alexey Loiko shares the content of the video: “From the moment the door to the apartment was opened, Sergey Kuznetsov was three meters away from the door, hiding behind the wall. The accused didn’t take steps towards the police. There was no knife visible in the hand of the accused in the video. Also, we couldn’t hear that the accused made any threats against law enforcement officers.”

The riot police officers asked for the mildest punishment.

According to the human rights activist, after the session’s resumption, the judge questioned the accused. She forced him to say that he’s sorry for what he had done, demanded to plead guilty, insistently demanding to admit the fact of threats to the police officers and swinging with a knife. During the debates, the state prosecutor Shamko asked the court to reclassify the charge from Article 364 of the Criminal Code (Violence or Threat of Violence Against an Employee of Internal Affairs) to Part 2 of Article 363 (resistance to an employee of the internal affairs, associated with the use of violence or the threat of its use). He asked to bring the accused to criminal liability in the form of restriction of freedom for three years without being sent to a correctional institution.

Two of the four victims from riot police asked the court not to punish Sergei Kuznetsov with imprisonment and apply the mildest punishment. Also, they refused all the claims for moral damages.

As the state prosecutor requested it, judge Elena Kaptsevich reclassified the charges against Sergei Kuznetsov to part 2 of Art. 363 of the Criminal Code, “resistance to an employee of the internal affairs bodies or other person protecting public order.” On October 19, the judge found him guilty under this article and sentenced Sergei Kuznetsov to 1 year 6 months of restriction of liberty without being sent to a correctional institution.