The District Prosecutor's Office in Hajnówka (Podlaskie) has published information about the supplementation of the evidentiary motion it filed in the case of activists involved in humanitarian aid on the border with Belarus. They are accused of facilitating migrants' illegal stay in Poland. – It is necessary to question one more witness, the trial may end in June – the court decided.
The prosecutor's office also requests the court to appoint experts to assess this new evidence. The next hearing is scheduled for Wednesday.
In the opinion of the prosecutor's office, additional evidence submitted by it to the case file justifies changing the qualification of the acts charged against the accused – from facilitating their stay in Poland to organizing illegal border crossing for migrants “jointly and in agreement with each other and with other unidentified persons”. This is a more severe qualification than that contained in the indictment.
The court heard three witnesses on Wednesday, including two people – women of Kurdish origin – using a teleconference with a court in Germany. It decided that the prosecutor's office's new evidentiary motions, in which it assessed that there were circumstances to change the legal classification to a more severe one, will be considered at the next hearing – at the end of June.
This is a motion, among other things, to appoint an expert from the Internal Security Agency to examine the contents of the phones secured in the case. The prosecutor's office wanted the court to give it five months to prepare such an opinion. The District Court in Hajnówka did not make a decision on this motion, only taking into account another one – to question another Border Guard officer.
At the same time, the court announced that at the next hearing – scheduled for the end of June – it is very likely that the trial will be closed and the parties will deliver their closing arguments. Then, a verdict would be issued no later than two weeks later.
New evidence in activist case?
On Tuesday, the website of the District Prosecutor's Office in Białystok published a statement regarding the prosecutor's evidentiary motions in this case. The statement also included a copy of the supplementation of the evidentiary motion submitted to the court at the end of April. As reported, in a letter to the case files, the prosecutor's office in Hajnówka presented the justification for the motions submitted by the prosecutor at the last hearing.
Additional evidence comes from an investigation by the Lublin branch of the National Prosecutor's Office. According to information given in court on April 15 by prosecutor Magdalena Rutyna from the District Prosecutor's Office in Hajnówka, these are screenshots of messages and voice recordings from internet messengers from a phone found in a car that was allegedly driven by two of the five defendants.
The prosecutor said that these conversations include, for example:
- on instructions for migrants,
- what routes should they choose to get to Western Europe safely and quickly,
- what amounts are charged for transport,
- whether and how to present your situation to the services after being detained.
She also spoke about the correspondence between one of the accused and a person whom the prosecutor described as the organizer of human smuggling.
“In her conversation with the organizer, the accused declared the possibility of paying the “couriers” with money from Poles, which was transferred as donations to help migrants. The hard-earned money by Poles, which they transferred in accordance with their conviction to a just cause, was in fact transferred to finance human trafficking and organizing illegal border crossings,” said prosecutor Rutyna at the time.
What exactly is the lawsuit about?
Five people are facing charges in the trial based on the indictment of the Hajnówka District Prosecutor's Office. Initially, investigators charged them with aiding and abetting the illegal crossing of the Polish-Belarusian border in March 2022 (which carries a penalty of up to eight years in prison) by an Egyptian and a family from Iraq.
After a two-year investigation, the prosecutor's office changed the charges and the indictment was brought to court in this version. She accused one person of, among other things, providing food and clothing to the migrants while they were in the forest. She also allegedly passed on information that would be useful in the event of arrest, provided shelter and ensured rest. She accused the remaining four of transporting these foreigners into the country.
According to the prosecutor's office, the activists acted in order to gain personal benefits for the people they helped. The accused do not admit to it, they assure that it was about helping migrants for humanitarian reasons. The charges brought against them and then the indictment sent to the court were met with protests from organizations providing humanitarian aid in connection with the migration crisis on the border with Belarus.
The trial is ongoing at the District Court in Hajnówka, but it is taking place in the courtroom of the District Court in Białystok; the problem is that the Hajnówka court does not have a courtroom large enough to accommodate a large group of journalists and the public. Subsequent hearings are accompanied by solidarity actions with the accused, taking place in front of the court building. (PAP)
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