Star Metro - Belarus frees opposition politician Statkevich

He suffered a stroke behind bars and is having difficulty speaking, she added.

"The stroke was, as I managed to find out, on January 21. All this time he was in a prison hospital in Kolyadichy. He spent three weeks in intensive care," Marina Adamovich said.

"He is at home, recovering. I really hope that everything will be fine. The main problem at the moment is his speech. It's bad, it's difficult to have a conversation."

Statkevich, 69, had been an active member of Belarus's opposition since the 1990s and ran against the country's longtime leader Alexander Lukashenko in a 2010 presidential election.

He was due to be freed and deported alongside dozens of other political prisoners last September but refused to leave the country, prompting Belarus to put him back in jail.

He had been in jail for five years prior to that.

More than 1,000 political prisoners remain behind bars in Belarus, according to the Viasna human rights group.

Many were detained during a brutal crackdown on opposition in the wake of Lukashenko's disputed 2020 re-election and prosecuted on what rights groups have described as politically motivated charges.

Lukashenko has ruled the country since 1994, crushing domestic opponents and forging a tight alliance with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Belarusian opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya welcomed Statkevich's release, saying in a post on X that she was "relieved".

T. MacDonald--SMC