Since 2020 she lives in Lithuania
The Minsk City Court sentenced former candidate for the presidency of Belarus Svetlana Tikhanovskaya in absentia to 15 years in prison in the case of the Coordinating Council of the Belarusian opposition. BelTA reports.
Tikhanovskaya and other defendants in the case were found guilty of conspiring to seize state power, creating an extremist group and publicly calling for the seizure of power, as well as inciting social hatred and discord.
Ex-Minister of Culture of the country Pavel Latushko was sentenced in absentia to 18 years in prison. Maria Moroz, Olga Kovalkovskaya and Sergey Dylevsky were each assigned 12 years in prison.
The prosecutor’s office demanded 19 years in prison for Tikhanovskaya and Latushko.
What else is known:
In August 2020, presidential elections were held in Belarus, which were again won by the current president of the country, Alexander Lukashenko. The opposition called the voting results falsified, after which large-scale processes began in the country, in which hundreds of thousands of people took part. The authorities violently suppressed the demonstrations.
Against this background, Svetlana Tikhanovskaya was forced to leave Belarus. Several criminal cases were brought against her and other representatives of the opposition. Since 2020, Tikhanovskaya has been living in Lithuania.
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In 2021, Tikhanovskaya’s husband, Sergei, was sentenced to 18 years in prison. The court found him guilty of organizing riots. In the same year, Tikhanovskaya’s associate Maria Kolesnikova was sentenced to 11 years in prison. She was found guilty of calling for actions that threaten national security, creating an extremist group and plotting to seize power.
In 2022, an institution of special proceedings was introduced in Belarus, which allows conducting trials in absentia in the absence of the accused.
