Resident Of Ivatsevichy District Wins Trial Against Three Policemen

Now Anton Ivanou demands to punish the police officers.

29-year-old resident of the village of Volya, Ivatsevichy district, Anton Ivanou was able to defend himself in court against charges from the police. Now he demands to punish the police officers for his unreasonable detention in the detention facility for one day, Radio Liberty reports.

Anton Ivanou has a private farm, and also works as a stoker. He is a hunter, has a registered gun. His problems with the police started when he bought an electric tool from a fellow villager, and it turned out to be stolen.

However, the police failed to prove any guilt over alleged purchasing of stolen goods and, after questioning, accused Anton Ivanou of using obscene language. An administrative case against him was initiated under the article “petty hooliganism”. The police transferred the case to the court of the Ivatsevichy district and came up with the threat of taking the weapons possession permit from Ivanou.

The guilt will not be proven

Three policemen of the Ivatsevichy District Department of Internal Affairs were witnesses in the case of disorderly conduct on the part of Ivanou, and argued to the court that he allegedly “being in the building of the Ivatsevichy District Department of Internal Affairs, deliberately used obscene language in a loud manner, in the presence of police officers, shouted, waved his hands, gave no reaction to the repeated demands to stop unlawful actions, thus violated public order and the tranquility of citizens with a clear disrespect for the society.”

However, Judge Vasil Aurusevich considered that the explanations of the witnesses-policemen Artsiushenia, Kikun and Kotau did not prove the guilt of Anton Ivanou.

“The information about the presence in the office of other persons, whose tranquility was disturbed, was not proved to the court; therefore, the court considers that the actions of Ivanou A.M. were not connected with the violation of public order, did not show obvious disrespect for the society, did not violate the peace of other citizens,” the judge explained his position.

The court decided to discontinue the case “due to the lack of evidence of guilt.”

Why did Ivanou swear in the district police department?

The conflict situation occurred in the summer of 2018. As Anton Ivanou told, a fellow villager came to him and offered to buy an electric tool at a low price. Ivanou keeps a personal farm, therefore, he says, he considered that the tool would be useful in the household, therefore he purchased it.

On June 14, police came to Ivanou and demanded that he should “confess”:

- They put psychological pressure on me, intimidated me, so I naturally didn’t confess of having done anything.

“They said without any explanations — go on, confess. I asked - what happened? They said nothing, and in the end brought to the police department so that I start “speaking differently”. The police demanded I must confess for a long time, then they explained that I had bought a stolen electric tool. They put psychological pressure on me, intimidated me, so I naturally didn’t confess of having done anything at all, ”says Anton Ivanou.

He spent half the day in the police department. A fellow villager was even brought into the office, who confirmed that he had sold those electric tools to Ivanou.

“As a result, they freaked out, checked me for alcohol - I turned out to be sober. Then they put me in a cell. In the morning they brought me some documents to sign, they said: go home and nothing will happen. I signed the papers through the window. Later I found out that I behaved inadequately, waved my arms and used foul language,” says Anton Ivanou.

As a result, Ivanou was released from the police department; he handed over the electric tool to the policemen.

They wanted to withdraw the weapons possession permit

Later, Ivanou received a letter from the officers of court that he was fined for 2 base fees (BYN 49). And then a policeman came home, and said that Ivanou had to surrender his registered gun, since he had no right to keep it because he had been brought to responsibility for hooliganism.

“After they had reported that they should deprive me of the weapons possession permit for three years, I went to the department to ask: how come, they promised that nothing would happen. I did not achieve anything, as a result I wrote a complaint to the prosecutor's office. Our prosecutors stood up for them; I wrote more complaints, to the regional one. And from there came the answer that the punishment was groundless and illegal and the case was brought to our court,” said Anton Ivanou.

Ivanou says that if it were not for the gun, he would not have written a complaint. But he, as a hunter, was especially outraged about this fact.

Anton Ivanou said that he would write further complaints about the actions of the police officers, and sue them for having illegally held him in the detention center for a day.

The police of the Ivatsevichy district do not comment on this incident.