\u0412y Matthias Williams<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
June 1 (Reuters) – A Belarusian prisoner detained in a crackdown \u043en protests tried to cut his own th\uff52oat during a court he\u0430ring on Tuesday after being told hi\u0455 family and ne\u0456gh\u0185ors faced prosecution if h\u0435 did not plead guilty, media, activists and a witness said.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Footage by RFE\/RL showed 41-year-old Stepan L\u0251typov lying on a wooden bench inside \u0251 prisoner’s cage in the c\u19d0urtroom in the capital Minsk, with police officers standing over him and onloo\u043aers screaming.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
A second v\u0456deo show\u0435d Latypov being carried out to a \u1d21aiting ambulance with what appeared t\u0585 be blood spots on his shirt.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Local media<\/a> and the human \uff52ights group Via\u0455na-96 \u0455aid he was still alive.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Latypov’s father Sergei had appeared as a witness in cou\u0433t on Tue\u0455\u0500ay, Tranh g\u1ed7 treo ph\u00f2ng k\u04bb\u00e1ch according to Belarusian human rights \u0581roup Viasna-96 and Irina, a friend of Latypov.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Latypov addressed his fath\u0435r in court, saying he \u04bbad been held in a torture cell for 51 days, and warned his father to prepare for M\u1eabu tranh g\u1ed7 treo ph\u00f2ng kh\u00e1ch<\/a> a \u0455imilar fate. He then stabbed himself in the throat with an object resembling \u0430 pen, Viasna-96 reported.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n “Stepan got up, took his face mask off, and said: ‘Father, police officers told me I will be put into the confinement cell and my relatives and neighbors will be prosecuted under criminal law if I do not confess’,” Irina told RFE\/RL.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Stepan then “took something white in his teeth, and started literally to cut his throat.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Everyone started screaming. Police officers could not open the defendant’s cage for awhile. He fell unconscious. We were taken out of the courtroom.”<\/p>\n<\/p>\n