International Desk: A Belarusian court has sentenced Ales Bialiatski, Belarus’s top human rights advocate and one of the winners of the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize, to 10 years in prison.

Bialiatski and three other top figures of the Viasna Human Rights Centre he founded were charged with financing protests and smuggling money on Friday.

Exiled Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya said Bialiatski and other activists sentenced in the same trial had been unfairly convicted, calling the verdict “appalling”.

“We must do everything to fight against this shameful injustice & free them,” she said on Twitter.

Prosecutors had asked the Minsk court to give Bialiatski, who denied the charges, a 12-year sentence.

Belarusian state news agency Belta confirmed the sentences.

Aged 60, Bialiatski is one of the most prominent of hundreds of Belarusians who were jailed during a crackdown on anti-government protests that erupted after long-time leader Alexander Lukashenko was declared the winner of the 2020 presidential election and continued into 2021.