Former presidential candidate Sannikaw placed in administrative detention in Babruysk prison

Former presidential candidate Andrey Sannikaw has been moved from the quarantine unit in the Correctional Institution No. 2 in Babruysk to the administrative detention unit, his wife, Iryna Khalip, told BelaPAN on Tuesday.

Inmates are normally placed in administrative detention for repeat disciplinary infractions, but it is not known that Mr. Sannikaw has violated some prison rule, said Ms. Khalip.

She suggested that her husband had, perhaps, been placed in protective custody in connection with safety threats that he had received while in transit. "A probe must be carried out in pursuance of his application," she said. "Until such a probe is completed, the inmate must be held in solitary confinement, separately from the general population. But the inquiry has not yet been opened, and I don’t know whether he is in solitary confinement."

She said that Mr. Sannikaw’s lawyer would go to Babruysk on October 27 to meet with him. "I don’t know whether I will go with him," she said. "I am waiting for permission for delivering warm clothes to Andrey. The winter is coming."

Ms. Khalip said that her husband had developed joint pains because of low temperatures in the quarantine unit.

In late September, the ex-candidate was transferred to the correction institution in the Mahilyow region from a prison in Navapolatsk.

On May 14, a judge of the Partyzanski District Court sentenced Mr. Sannikaw to five years in prison, finding him guilty of organizing "mass disorder" in connection with a post-election protest staged in the Belarusian capital city on December 19, 2010.