Ukraine Releases Belarusian Activist after Two Year Detention

By Elizabeth A. Conger
Impunity Watch, Europe

KIEV, Ukraine - On Monday Belarusian opposition activist Igor Koktysh was released by Ukrainian officials from a Crimean jail nearly two months after the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg ordered his release. On December 10, 2009, the Strasbourg court ruled that Ukrainian authorities had violated Koktysh's rights, and ordered them to pay Koktysh $10,000 in compensation.

  
Photo: Belarusian activist, Igor Koktysh, had been detained in Ukraine since 2007. [Source: RFE]
 
Igor Koktysh, a Belarusian youth activist and rock musician, is wanted by Belarusian authorities for alleged involvement in a murder in January 2001. The twenty-nine-year-old had been living in Ukraine since 2002, and was arrested by Ukrainian police in Sevastopol in the summer of 2007 upon the request of the Belarusian government. He spent two years and seven months in a detention center while Ukrainian officials considered whether to extradite him.

Koktysh has said that the charges against him in Belarus stem from political motivations because of his 2006 opposition activities in support of Belarusian presidential candidate Alyaksandr Milinkevich. The European Court of Human Rights has ruled that the charges were trumped up, acquitted Koktysh of the offense, and held that the Ukrainian authorities' continued detention of Koktysh was illegal. The court also held that if Ukraine were to extradite Koktysh back to Belarus, they would be in violation of Articles Three and Five of the European Convention on Human Rights, prohibiting torture and ill-treatment, and securing the right to liberty and personal security.

He told Radio Svoboda that the fact the Ukraine complied with the demands of the European Court showed that there was democracy worth fighting for in Ukraine.

"I have become convinced that there is justice and it can be achieved. However the only problem is that it's hard to achieve. In my case I spent more than two and a half years imprisoned simply because there was no law on extradition. These are basic things that haven't been resolved, and that's the problem."

Koktysh plans to fight for his right to remain in Ukraine with his Ukrainian wife, Iryna, and the court hearing over his application for refugee status is scheduled for February 12, 2010.

For more information, please see:

Kyiv Post - Amnesty International: Ukraine releases Belarusian activist - 5 February 2010

KhPG - Igor Koktysh freed at last - 4 February 2010

RFE - Belarusian Activist Released from Long Detention In Ukraine - 4 February 2010