Rinkevics condemns sentencing of Belarusian opposition leaders Tsihanouskaya and Latushka

RIGA - Latvian Foreign Minister Edgars Rinkevics (New Unity) has condemned the sentencing of exiled Belarusian opposition leaders Sviatlana Tsihanouskaya and Pavel Latushka.

"Kangaroo court in #Minsk have sentenced in absentia @Tsihanouskaya and @PavelLatushka, I condemn another abuse of justice imposed by the illegitimate Lukashenko’s regime," Rinkevics said on Twitter. 

A court in Belarus on Monday sentenced Tsihanouskaya to 15 years in jail,  reported Belarusian news agency Belta. 

Tsihanovskaya was tried in absentia on charges including high treason and conspiring to overthrow the government. 

Tsikhanouskaya ran against authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko in Aug. 2020, in an election that handed him his sixth term in office and was widely seen as rigged. She called her conviction and sentence an act of vengeance by Belarusian authorities and vowed to continue to “fight for freedom.”

Another exiled opposition politician, Pavel Latushka, was sentenced to 18 years in prison. Latushka once served as Belarus' minister of culture and then as ambassador in several European nations.