English

Lawyer urges Supreme Court to immediately consider appeal against Kavalyow's death sentence

The lawyer of Uladzislaw Kavalyow, one of the two young men executed over the April 2011 subway bombing, has applied to the Supreme Court of Belarus to immediately consider an appeal against the man's conviction.

His mother, Lyubow Kavalyow, filed the appeal on September 29, 2012, more than six months after the execution of her son.

On October 30, she received a reply from the Supreme Court, which said that the consideration of the appeal had been extended owing to the need for an additional examination of the case.
Ms. Kavalyow subsequently complained to Prosecutor General Alyaksandr Kanyuk about the Supreme Court's decision.

In her complaint, the woman said that the Criminal Procedure Code required such appeals to be considered within a month.

The woman reiterated in the complaint that the case against her son had been "fabricated" and the young man had not been given a fair trial. "The sentence was carried out. I no longer have a son, while the Supreme Court continues doing lawlessness, ignoring Belarusian laws," the complaint said.

However, the Prosecutor General's Office replied that Ms. Kavalyow did not have the right to lodge such complaints because she was not "a subject of the criminal proceedings."

"While Uladzislaw was still under investigation, I was denied permission to act as his legal representative," Ms. Kavalyow commented to BelaPAN. "He signed a proxy authorizing me to act on his behalf, but the document mysteriously disappeared in the KGB detention center. After his sentencing, I lodged three complaints with the KGB jail, but I never received the proxy."

As a result of their trial held between September 15 and November 30, 2011, Mr. Kavalyow and his friend Dzmitry Kanavalaw were convicted of two 2005 bomb explosions in Vitsyebsk, a bomb attack during an open-air Independence Day concert in Minsk in July 2008 and the subway bombing in April 2011.

The Supreme Court of Belarus found Mr. Kanavalaw guilty of committing the explosions and Mr. Kavalyow was found guilty of being accomplice to the crimes. Both were sentenced to death.

Mr. Kavalyow applied for a presidential pardon in early December, while Mr. Kanavalaw decided against doing so, according to authorities.

On March 14, 2012, it became known that Alyaksandr Lukashenka had denied clemency to the men. Three days later, the ONT television network announced that Messrs. Kavalyow and Kanavalaw had been executed. //BelaPAN