Death convicts brothers Kostseu pardoned
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- Stanislau Kostseu (left) and his brother Illia Kostseu during an appeal hearing at the Supreme Court. Photo: tut.by
Illia Kostseu and Stanislau Kostseu, two brothers sentenced to death in January 2020, have been pardoned, according to their relatives.
Today, the administration of pre-trial detention center No. 1 in Minsk, which houses the country’s only death row, refused to accept a parcel from the prisoners’ family, saying that the prison had received a pardon paper from the presidential office. As a result, the two death convicts will no longer be held on death row, but are expected to be transferred to a regular prison in Žodzina.
The family has not received any official documents, however.
In the 30 years of Belarus’s independence, only one instance is known of a death convict pardoned after the sentence became final.
Illia Kostseu, 21, and Stanislau Kostseu, 19, were sentenced to death on January 10, 2020, after the Mahilioŭ Regional Court found them guilty of killing their former schoolteacher and setting fire to her house.
On May 22, the Supreme Court upheld the death sentences. After that, the brothers appealed for clemency to Aliaksandr Lukashenka.
