The Court of Appeal in Belgrade annulled the decision of the High Court on the extradition of Belarusian activist Andrej Gnjot to Minsk and sent the case back to the court for a new decision.
In the decision published on the website of the Appellate Court, it is stated that such a decision was made after appeals by Gnjot's lawyers.
It is emphasized that "the legality and regularity of the decision of the first-instance court are refuted by the appeals".
This is explained by the fact that "... in this particular case, the decision of the first instance court was made on the basis of an incompletely established factual situation, which resulted in a significant violation of the provisions of the criminal procedure".
It "consists in the fact that the reasons for the facts that are the subject of proof are not stated in the explanation of the first-instance decision, and those that have been presented are completely unclear and at the same time mutually contradictory", it is stated.
The authorities in Minsk accuse Gnjota of tax evasion, and he himself points out that this is one of the ways in which the regime of Alexander Lukashenko tries to silence any criticism of Belarus.
In the explanation of the decision of the Appellate Court, it is also said that "in the explanation of the decision, the first-instance court presents an assessment of the existence of reasonable suspicion that the defendant committed the criminal offense charged against him and, according to the opinion of the Appellate Court, gives unacceptable reasons for the same".
It is also said that "taking into account that the first-instance court concluded that the criminal offense charged against the defendant is similar to the criminal offense of tax evasion from the Criminal Code of Serbia, it was necessary to obtain from the petitioning state the provisions of the law for which the defendant is charged with violated them and the violation of which resulted in damage in particularly large amounts".
Gnjot: I am still not given freedom
In the first reaction to the decision of the Appellate Court announced today, Belarusian activist Andrej Gnjot points out that, on the one hand, it is good that he has not been extradited at the moment, but also that, on the other hand, he has not been given freedom:
"I am still in custody and I am not guilty of anything. I have to find money to pay rent, buy food, medicine, even water. I only have 1 hour a day to go outside. I can't get medical care, let alone live a normal life. And if I run out of money - and now I live only on donations, I can't work, I have no savings - then I have to go back to prison again. Overall, this is a very compromise solution, suitable for everyone but me. "My status as a prisoner has not changed," says Andrej Gnjot.
According to his assessment, although he was not extradited, his case was sent back for further processing, so that, as Gnjot points out, there would be enough material for extradition:
"And I am sitting in detention as a criminal. And I have to pay for it. During that time, Belarus can invent one or more criminal cases against me. Do you get that? That's a sign of a dictatorship: you messed up the first time, try again, we're giving you a chance," says Gnjot in his first reaction to the decision of the Court of Appeal in Belgrade.
By the way, Gnjot was arrested in Serbia in 2023 on the basis of an Interpol warrant backed by the regime in Minsk, and the open letter points out that this is a tactic used by the Belarusian regime to track and silence democratic activists from this country around the world. Interpol later withdrew the warrant from Belarus.
A large group of European directors, actors and other artists sent an open letter to the Court of Appeal and the Minister of Justice, Maja Popović, with an invitation to stop the extradition of the Belarusian activist who spent seven months in prison in Serbia and has been under house arrest since June.
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