The District Court in the city of Hajnówka has notified the defendants of the date of the main hearing. This means that we know the date for the start of the trial – 28 January 2025, at 11:30am.
The trial will take place before the Court in Hajnówka City, Poland.
The trial is about five people facing up to five years in prison for providing humanitarian aid on the Polish-Belarusian border. According to the prosecutor’s office, their ‘crime’ was to provide food and clothing and transport refugees ‘into the country’, which literally means driving them from the forest a few kilometres to the nearest town. Additionally, according to the prosecution, the Five were supposed to have done this for personal gain – but not their own, but that of the refugees. They now face up to five years in prison for this simple human act.