Ales Bialiatski speaking at the headquarters of the European Parliament in Strasbourg in 2014. (Credit: Wiktor Dabkowski/dpa/AP)
(CNN) --
Belarusian Ales Beliatski, winner of the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize, was found guilty of the charges by a Minsk court on Friday and sentenced to 10 years in prison in a maximum-security penal colony, the agency reported. Russian news outlet TASS.
He was found guilty of the smuggling charge, according to TASS.
Bialiatski, a pro-democracy activist, has documented human rights abuses in Belarus since the 1980s. In 1996 he founded the organization Viasna, or Spring, after a referendum consolidated the authoritarian powers of the president and close Russian ally , President Alexander Lukashenko.
Human rights defenders in Ukraine, Russia and Belarus win the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize
The activist was arrested in 2020 amid widespread protests against the Alexandr Lukashenko regime.
Belarus
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