Margaryta Zaran: “I don’t seek punishment for those police officers…”
Margaryta has been back at home since September 3, yet she must return home not later than 1900 and report regularly to her district police inspector.
Five months ago, Margaryta Zaran, 20 was sentenced to four years in prison on charges of “buying 0.28 grams of marijuana for Br22,000”.
Police’s main target was Andrey Zdasyuk, a professor with the local university, suspected of drug-trafficking. Margaryta served as a bite that police wanted to use in order to frame her professor. Margaryta’s childhood friend, Andrey Kisel, had earlier been caught by police for drug usage and agreed to cooperate. Kisel asked Margaryta to buy marijuana from her professor. In the words of Ryta, the professor would routinely hint about drugs to his students, saying it was not bad at all.
When Margaryta brought the drug to her “friend”, undercover agents were already there for her. However, the main suspect managed to escape. After that, police put all the blame on Margaryta. Her “friend” received suspended sentence…
Valiatsina Zaran, the girl’s mother, has visited many offices, including the Prosecutor General, in order to defend her daughter. Eventually, the case was refiled to the Hrodna Regional Court.
“Basically, I have gone all the way through which almost everyone in this situation does: the regional court, the Supreme Court. I even wrote to the president. Eventually, the case was resolved at the level of the regional court. The sentence was changed from imprisonment to the restricted freedom. I would like to say a big THANK YOU to you and all people who defended her. Today I and Ryta went to the church to pray for all those who helped us,” the mother said.
Last month, Valiantsina Zaran had an appointment with Prosecutor General Piotr Miklashevich. In her words, when she asked the high official whether it was moral to set up innocent people in order to promote police careers, she was told: “It is both amoral and illegal”. However, conviction was not cleared from the girl. The mother explains it in a very simple way:
“You understand how many people need to be punished in order to clear her from this conviction”.
The Interior Ministry said through a spokesman that “it was not an investigation mistake. It was the mistake of the court”.
Margaryta spent over 5 months in a colony, not knowing what she had been sentenced for.
“I felt bad and scared, because I did not understand how I violated the law,” she says.
Even other convicts treated her differently.
“The environment was of course rather hostile. There was no feeling of friendship or unity. Everyone is hostile to each other. They treated me differently because they understood that it was some kind of mistake that I ended up there,” Margaryta narrates.
Now that she is free, Margaryta does not have a grudge against her “friend” and police agents that set her up.
“I don’t wish anyone to go through what I have gone. No, I don’t want them to be punished”, she says.
Margaryta is now planning to get restored at the university after the winter exams.
Photo: http://www.levonevsky.org
