Complaint about violation of death convict Vasil Yuzepchuk’s rights submitted to UN Human Rights Committee
On 9 October, on the eve of the World Day against the Death Penalty, the UN Human Rights Committee confirmed receiving the individual address of Vasil Yuzepchuk, who on 28 June 2009 was sentenced by Brest oblast court to death with property confiscation.
On 2 October 2009 after the opinion of the College Board of the Supreme Court was announced, the death verdict to Vasil Yuzepchuk came into force and can be implemented. All national means of legal defense have been depleted, after which an individual address on behalf of the convict was submitted to the office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in Geneva.
The address points at the Articles of the International Covenant on Civil and Political rights which were violated by the Republic of Belarus in Vasil Yuzepchuk case: articles 6 (paragraph 1 and 2), 7, 9 (paragraphoint 3), 14 (points 1, 2, 3e, 3g) and 26. These articles concern the right to life, the prohibition of torture, the right to freedom and personal immunity, the right to be urgently brought to a trial since the moment of the detention, the right to a fair trial and the prohibition of adverse discrimination.
The author of the complaint asks the Committee to register the document ASAP and urgently address the Belarus as a state party of the Covenant with the request not to implement the death penalty till consideration of the complaint in essence by the UN Human Rights Committee, in order to prevent the possible of irretrievable court mistake concerning the victim of this possible violation.
The Belarusian human rights activists express their hopes that the complaint will be registered during the next few days, as the death sentence can be implemented.
‘Filing a complaint with the UN Human Rights Committee is the only possible international mechanism for defense of the death convict Yuzepchuk. We hope the Belarusian authorities will lend an ear to the international human rights organizations and won’t implement this sentence,’ commented the representative of the Human Rights Center Viasna Valiantsin Stefanovich.
