Head of OSCE Office in Minsk visits Alexander Vasilyev in prison hospital

MINSK, 13 April 2005 - The Head of the OSCE Office in Minsk, Ambassador Eberhard Heyken, today visited Alexander Vasilyev in the First Colony prison hospital in Minsk.

In September 2004 Mr. Vasilyev and his associate, Valery Levonevski, were sentenced to two years of imprisonment for defaming the President of Belarus.

The two stood accused of slandering the President after distributing leaflets with a poem by an unknown author at an unsanctioned rally in May 2004.

Ambassador Heyken's meeting with Mr. Vasilyev lasted 45 minutes. The conversation focused on his state of health and on the prison conditions.

Mr. Vasilyev, 59 years old, said that, due to surgery a number of years ago, he could not carry out heavy work.

Furthermore, he claims to suffer from high blood pressure and angina (heart pain), and therefore regularly needed medicine.

He told Heyken the prison hospital had informed him that he would be transferred back to the colony No. 8 in Orsha in the next few days.