Andrey Sannikaw is held in a detention center in Mahilyow, an officer of the interior ministry’s Corrections Department told the wife of the former presidential candidate, Iryna Khalip, on Monday.
The officer said that the 57-year-old politician had been held in a transfer center for prisoners in transit in Vitsyebsk following his removal from a correctional institution in nearby Navapolatsk.
"I think that they seek to mount pressure on Andrey," Ms. Khalip said.
She said that her husband's defense lawyers would try to meet with him in the detention center in Mahilyow.
Last Wednesday Ms. Khalip received a telegram from the governor of the prison in Navapolatsk in which her husband had originally been placed that he was removed from the prison the previous day to be transferred Correctional Institution No. Two in Babruysk, Mahilyow region.
On Friday, the woman visited the interior ministry’s Corrections Department where she was told that Mr. Sannikaw was still in transit, scheduled to arrive at the prison in the Mahilyow region the following day. However, Mr. Sannikaw did not arrive at the prison in Babruysk as expected.
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.
