Materials for the extradition of Sapieha were transferred to the Presnensky Court of Moscow

The materials of the Belarusian court on the case of Sofia Sapieha for extradition to Russia were transferred to the Presnensky Court of Moscow. About it informed Minister of Justice Konstantin Chuichenko in a conversation with TASS.

“The issue of transferring convict Sophia Sapega has been considered by the Russian Ministry of Justice since the end of January this year in connection with the appeal of a relative of the convict. The materials on the transfer of the convicted Sapieha to the Russian Federation were sent by the Ministry of Justice of Russia to the Federal Penitentiary Service for submitting to the Russian court a submission on the recognition and execution of the sentence of the Belarusian court on the territory of the Russian Federation,” he said, adding that the case materials were also received by the Presnensky court.

Chuichenko noted that the final decision on the extradition of Sapieha will be made by Belarus after the court in Russia makes a decision on this issue and sends it to the competent authority in Minsk.

On April 12, a convicted Russian woman agreed for extradition to Russia. According to the press secretary of the Russian embassy in Minsk, Aleksey Maskalev, on April 10, Sapega was visited by the Russian consul, during the meeting with whom “the consent was obtained from her for extradition to Russia for a possible serving of further punishment” already on the territory of the Russian Federation. On April 14, the Prosecutor General’s Office of Belarus gave consent to the extradition of Sapieha to Russia.

Sofia Sapega was detained along with the former editor-in-chief of the NEXTA Telegram channel (recognized as extremist and terrorist in Belarus) Roman Protasevich in May 2021, when the Belarusian authorities forced the plane carrying young people to land at the Minsk airport.

On May 6, 2022, the Grodno Regional Court sentenced Sapega to 6 years in a penal colony and ordered her to pay 167,500 Belarusian rubles (RUB 5.4 million at the current exchange rate) in moral damages to the victims. She was found guilty of illegally collecting and disseminating information about the private life of another person without his consent, which caused harm to the rights, freedoms and legitimate interests of the victims.

In the summer of 2022, Sapieha filed a petition for pardon addressed to the President of the Republic, Alexander Lukashenko, but was refused. Later in the administration of the President of Belarus explained this decision by the fact that the criteria for such a decision were not enough. In particular, Sapieha has not yet served “at least half of the term.”