The Minsk Regional Court sentenced him to eight years in prison Eduardo Babarik, the son of Belarusian oppositionist and former presidential candidate Viktor Babarik. Eduard was found guilty of tax evasion and “aiding and abetting a mass riot“. Babariko Jr. refused to admit his guilt.
Viktor and Eduard Babaryk were detained on June 18, 2020, two months before the presidential elections. Babariko was then, according to public opinion polls, the main and very dangerous competitor of Alexander Lukashenko. And the Belarusian ruler decided to eliminate the rival.
The former banker, as well as his son, were accused of financial fraud and non-payment of taxes. But it was clear to everyone that they were being persecuted for political reasons. Viktor and Eduard became one of the first to enter the list of Belarusian political prisoners in 2020. At the same time, no other arrested person spent as much time in the pre-trial detention center awaiting sentence as Eduard.
The prosecutor’s office had to invent new charges for him in order not to release him before the trial. As a result, inciting enmity and aiding in the organization of mass riots were added to financial crimes.
Viktor Babaryk was sentenced in the summer of 2021. The former presidential candidate was sentenced to 14 years in prison. In April of this year, it became known that he was transferred from the colony to the hospital. Nothing is known about Babarik Sr.’s state of health since then. Eduard’s lawyers wanted to call Victor as a witness, but the court refused them.
Before his arrest, Eduard Babaryko was engaged in crowdfunding platforms. He did not get into politics. My father, of course, supported me. One of his projects was called “The Beehive”. It was created to collect funds for publishing and reprinting in Belarusian the books of Svitlana Aleksievich, laureate of the Nobel Prize in Literature.
Eduard’s trial began on May 22. Everything went quickly. Babariko, as well as his friends, is sure that Lukashenka’s regime is taking revenge on him for his father’s political activities.
Earlier, “FACTS” published the comment of the coordinator of the “European Belarus” civic project, Dmytro Bondarenko: in order to save his life, Lukashenko may go for the release of political prisoners and even the “wildest alliances.”
In the photo in the header, Eduard and Viktor Babariko. The picture was taken in 2020 before their arrest
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