Andrey Klimau (Andrei Klimov): Businessman & Member of 13th Supreme Soviet Go to the [   A Belarus Miscellany Topic List   |   Famous Belarusians   |   Human Rights   |   News Sources on the WWW   ] Search the A Belarus Miscellany Web site Photo Credit: Charter 97

Andrey Klimau (Andrei Klimov): A member of the 13th Supreme Soviet, and a member of the opposition. Mr. Klimau was charged with embezzlement and business irregularities, while his supporters say that his prosecution is politically motivated.

On March 17 [2000], Mr. Klimau and two of his former employees, Leonid Volkovich and Ivan Lukyanchuk, were convicted of large-scale embezzlement and forgery. The court of Minsk's Leninsky district sentenced Mr. Klimau to 6 years in prison. Mr. Volkovich was sentenced to 4 years' imprisonment, and Mr. Lukyanchuk received a 3-year suspended sentence. Messrs. Klimov and Volkovich began to serve their terms on the day of their arrest, February 11, 1998.

Klimau's appeal against his six-year prison sentence was considered in the Minsk City Court on August 22 [2000], and on August 23, the Minsk City Court's Panel of Judges for Criminal Cases upheld a district court's sentences against businessman Andrei Klimov and Leonid Volkovich and Ivan Lukyanchuk, employees of Mr. Klimov's company. Mr. Volkovich's lawyer, Sergei Buyan, called the Minsk City Court's ruling "incomprehensible." "The sentence was unfounded, illegal, and should have been annulled," he told BelaPAN.

According to Mr. Pogonyailo, Andrey Klimau's defense lawyer, his client feels mentally exhausted as he has spent two years and six months in a tiny cell with only an hour's daily walk in a narrow prison yard.     Source (from the following and other sources):     BelaPAN, No. 63; Tuesday, August 15, 2000; 8:20 p.m., and No. 94; Wednesday, August 23, 2000; 4:20 p.m.