Zielcer’s widow transferred to mental clinic for compulsory treatment

August 26, BPN. Maryja Uspienskaja, widow of IT engineer Andrej Zielcer killed in the shootout with the KGB officers, has been transferred to a mental health facility in Minsk, the Viasna Human Rights Center reported.

On September 28, 2021, her husband opened fire on KGB officers as they raided his apartment in Minsk. He fatally wounded one of them, Dźmitryj Fiedasiuk, and was subsequently shot dead at the scene.

Uspienskaja was arrested after filming the incident on her cell phone camera. She was placed in a detention center and later transferred to a psychiatric clinic for three weeks. Initially, she was accused of complicity in Fiedasiuk’s murder.

On June 16, the Minsk City Court sentenced her to compulsory treatment in a mental hospital under regular surveillance and dropped all charges.

The court also ordered Uspienskaja to pay 100.000 rubels in moral damages to Fiedasiuk’s family to be donated to a Minsk orphanage.

In early October 2021, the police arrested over 130 people over negative posts about the killed KGB officer. Some of them have been given prison terms and others are held in custody awaiting trial.

Hiennadź Mažejka, a journalist of Komsomolskaya Pravda v Belarusi, was also arrested after the newspaper ran an article with positive comments about Zielcer by people who knew him. He is charged with incitement of hatred and insulting a public official.