The European Union’s External Action Service, the bloc’s diplomatic corps, has called for the release of Mikalai Khilo, a local member of staff with the EU delegation to Belarus who faces up to 12 years in jail.
Khilo has been in pretrial detention since April 24 when, according to an EU official, he was apprehended by the Belarus KGB intelligence service in front of the EU delegation office. Khilo is listed by Viasna, a Belarus human rights NGO, as a preacher with a local Baptist church, a detail the EEAS was unable to confirm.
What is certain is that Khilo was working for the EU delegation in Minsk. According to Viasna, he may have been accused of insulting Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, who will run again for office in yet another rigged election next month.
According to one EU official, Khilo is expected to stand trial on Dec. 23, while a second official said he faces a sentence of between four and 12 years.
“We urge the Belarusian authorities to release him immediately and unconditionally” Anitta Hipper, EU spokesperson for foreign affairs and security policy, told POLITICO. “We have been raising his case with Belarus at all our contacts with them.”
Local officials working for the EEAS are already in the spotlight after POLITICO reported on European Commission plans to cut embassies around the world to make way for “regional hubs.” The strategy implies that some 800 local officers risk being abandoned, as they can scarcely be relocated.
Speaking to EEAS staffers after her appointment, EU top diplomat Kaja Kallas complained that she had “learned about this [staffing policy] from the media, as you all did,” and promised to look into the matter.
Viasna claims that some 1,300 people in Belarus can be considered political prisoners. “Mikalai is a trusted member of the delegation and an excellent colleague” Hipper said.
“He continues to be employed by the EU. The EU delegation has been in regular contact with his family and his lawyer and follows the case closely.”
But Petras Auštrevičius, a Lithuanian member of the European Parliament from the centrist Renew group, said the EU must be ready to go further. “The Minsk regime is simply testing [the] EU position and response, and does it [in] a very provocative way,” he told POLITICO.
“[The] EU must talk to Minsk and send a clear message,” because if Khilo “goes on trial and [is] sentenced, [there will be] real diplomatic consequences,” he added.
“Belarus diplomats [will] have to [be] expelled and other actions applied.”
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