Homan wins in court.Traffic police vs university professor case discontinued
On November 17, Minsk's Saviecki District Court ruled to discontinue the case against Dzmitry Homan, classical philosophy professor at Belarus State University, on adminstrative offence charges of disobedience to the police due to the absence of guilt proof.
The court battle between the law-enforcers and the professor began on September 17 when he made an observation to the traffic police officers. Homan noticed that one of the patrol officers was recording road rules violations on his personal mobile phone.
The conflict led to Dzmitry Homan ending up locked in pretrial detention for two days and having to show up in court for three hearings. The first hearing in fact did not take place because the judge had sent the police report for further investigation. The second hearing lasted for just over one hour and even the traffic police officers - acting as witnesses - appeared in court. However, the judge again sent the police report for revision. The third hearing took place on November 16 - almost two months after the conflict.
BSU professor on trial over 'disobedience to police'
"I reckon the actions of the police were illegitimate. I regard the police report as an intention to take revenge and hide their own offences," Dzmitry Homan said in court.
At the hearing, Dmitry Homan maintained its innocence and declared his intention to seek justice with the help of prosecutor's office and Investigations Committee. "The actions of the traffice police officers contain a lot of various offences. Since recently, I have been even inclined to see the element of the crimes in their actions," Homan told the judge. And added: "Administrative proceedings against me are the police officers' revenge." The professor is convinced there are elements of arbitrariness and even misuse of official powers in the actions of inspectors Rapacki and Patsiomkin who detained his on September 17. Hence, Investigations Committee can be interested in invetigating their actions.
Just like during the first hearing, on November 16 there was many interesting dialogue between Dzmitry Homan and the police officers:
— Why did you take my phone away?
— For our personal safety.
— What was exactly the threat to your personal safety?
— You were waving your hands.
— Did you have the right to take my phone away?
— Yes.
— Please quote the legal provision which allows you that.
— I don;t remember.
It was something resembling an interrogation that Homan staged for the police officers who were testifying in court as witnesses. He asked them why they did not allow him to record his actions on video, on what grounds he was detained and sent to a pretrial detention cell why no police report was drawn when they took his mobile phon in the car. Most the questions were left without reasonable answers.
The hearing eneded on November 16 with the repeated screening of the video recorded by Dzmitry Homan. Judge Fiodarava said she would announce the ruling on the next day - November 17. Today, the ruling was to discontinue the proceedings.
