Defense analyst faces criminal charges over interview to Warsaw-based Euroradio

November 8, BPN. The Prosecutor’s Office of the Minsk region has forwarded a criminal case against “a 40-year-old resident of the Smalavičy district” to the Minsk Regional Court, the Prosecutor General’s press office reported.

Although it has not disclosed the defendant’s name, the context suggests that it presses the case against defense analyst Jahor Lebiadok.

Police arrested Lebiadok in July and jailed him first for 15 days for disobeying police orders. He was not released after serving the jail term. Instead, prosecutors charged him with facilitating extremism over his interviews, including comments to Warsaw-based Euroradio, a Belarusian radio station critical of the government.

The Prosecutor General’s Office does not name the station in its statement, but notes that the defendant gave interviews in April and May to a media outlet designated as “extremist content” about Russia’s war against Ukraine and Belarus’ role in it.

He allegedly discredited Belarus by “spreading false claims about the political, economic, social, military and international situation” of the country, it said.

Lebiadok, a former artillery platoon commander during service in the army, holds a PhD in laser physics. In 2017, he also earned a degree in public administration and law. He ran a Telegram channel about military and information security with 11,000 subscribers (the number has dropped to 7,400 after his arrest).