21 Сьнежня 2000
Brest official is convicted of spreading lies about opposition candidate in parliament elections

 A judge of a district court in Brest has ordered a local movies official, Vladimir Klimenko, to pay 200,000 rubels ($165) in damages for spreading lies about candidate Anatoly Novik during this fall's
parliamentary elections. Mr. Novik was run in the elections by the opposition Belarusian Party of Communists, while Mr. Klimenko was officially assigned by the Brest Regional Executive Committee(regional government) to supervise the election process in Mr. Novik's district. Speaking in public on one occasion, Mr. Klimenko called Mr. Novik a "repeat offender with four convictions." The Communist believes it was because of that false accusation that he won just over 14.7 percent of the votes, losing the race to Valery Zakharchenko, deputy chairman of the Brest Regional Executive Committee. In addition, he "had to prove to friends and strangers my lack of a criminal past." Mr. Klimenko neither admitted to lying nor produced any proof of his allegation. In addition to the damages, the court ordered him to apologize to the plaintiff verbally and in the local press. Nothing indicates that Mr. Klimenko has appealed the ruling.