http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A36656-2004Dec30.html?nav=headlines
Belarus Imprisons Opposition Politician
Reuters
Thursday, December 30, 2004; 3:05 PM
MINSK (Reuters) - A top opposition politician in ex-Soviet Belarus was
sentenced to five years in prison on Thursday in what he denounced as
an attempt to block his drive to make the ex-Soviet state more democratic.
Mikhail Marinich, who ran against President Alexander Lukashenko in
1991 elections, was detained in April by the state security service,
still known by its communist-era initials KGB.
An allegation of illegally owning weapons was dropped for lack of
evidence and he was convicted of stealing office equipment given to
his liberal think-tank by the U.S. embassy.
The embassy earlier said it had no objections to Marinich's actions,
although under the court ruling he must return the equipment to the
embassy.
"This process is a politically driven prosecution, brought for my
active work in civil society, for seeing Belarus developing on
European lines, for putting forward my candidacy in the presidential
elections," Marinich, 64, told the court.
Some analysts have suggested the prosecution was driven by
Lukashenko's desire to remove a potential rival since Marinich has
developed close ties in Moscow.
Russia is Belarus' closest ally but ties have cooled recently, and
some observers have suggested it could support an opposition candidate
in elections set for 2006.
Lukashenko won an internationally criticized referendum this year
allowing him to stand for a third term in the poll. His allies won a
simultaneous parliamentary election.
The former farm boss, who has run the country along Soviet lines since
he came to power in 1994, has pledged to crack down on corruption and
last year ordered prosecutors to pay special attention to opposition
politicians.
The West accuses Lukashenko of stifling the independent press and
cracking down on dissent and the European Union has slapped travel
bans on top officials. The EU has also frozen high-level contacts with
Belarus, a neighbor since the trading bloc expanded earlier this year.
Washington also criticized the conduct of elections in the
increasingly isolated state.
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