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Igor Koktysh, with his wife Irina days after his release, was held for two and half years. Amnesty International has welcomed the release of the Belarusian opposition activist and musician Igor Koktysh, who has been held in a pre-trial detention centre in Ukraine for two and a half years.

Igor Koktysh had been detained in Ukraine since June 2007 when Belarus requested his extradition over an accusation that he committed murder in Belarus in January 2001, an offence he had been acquitted of in 2002. He was released on Monday.

Amnesty International believes that he was charged by the Belarusian authorities because of his social and political activism. Before his release, the organization considered Igor Koktysh to be a prisoner of conscience.

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