In May 2004 the police detained the head of the strike committee of entrepreneurs Valery Levanewski and his substitute Aliaksandr Vasilyew. Both of them were charged with insult to president for distribution of a flys-sheet with satyrical poerm on 1 May. Aliaksandr Vasilyew was also charged with organization of unauthorized meeting on that day. On 8 September both of them received severe sentence.
The accused spent four months behind bolt and bar before the trial. During these four months the investigation failed to find sufficient proof of their guilt.
At the court sitting of 2 September witnesses of the accusation were asked whether there was any insult in the poem that was printed in the fly-sheet. Valery Levanewski solicited to court for finding these witnesses irrelevant, because by interrogating the witnesses who, according to their own words, have little understanding of poetry, the accusation artificially created evidence of his guilt. He said that the witnesses were interrogated as experts which have knowledge in certain field, though they are not, which is a violation of criminal-process legislation.
The experts who analyzed the poem on request of the investigator that prepared the criminal case didn’t find any insults to Lukashenka in the poem, that’s why the accuser decided to use the police, workers and pensioners as experts instead.
On 8 September Levanewski and Vasilyew were sentenced to two years of jail.
