European court unfreezes Dynamo Minsk assets

The assets were frozen in 2012 by the Council of Europe (CE) as part of a programme of sanctions against the controversial Belarus leader and those close to him.

The council targeted people accused of "serious human rights violations or acts of repression against civil society and the democratic opposition" in Belarus.

Dynamo chairman Yuri Alexandrovich Chizh was among those who applied to the European Court to have their assets unfrozen and the court ruled the CE had failed to prove he had financially supported the regime "such that his inclusion on the list of sanctions was not justified".

The court also indicated that the CE "had failed to show that the club's owners were people who supported the Lukachenko regime or profited by it".

Lukachenko is often called 'Europe's last dictator' by his critics who accuse him of human rights abuses and the jailing of critics and opposition leaders.