Igor Rynkevich said the trial is politically motivated and is an attempt to exert pressure on the defense team for Alexander Kozulin, one of three defeated candidates in the March 19 presidential elections that saw incumbent President Alexander Lukashenko gain a third term in office.
"If lawyers are being summoned to court on minor infractions, what does this say about Belarus' judicial system as a whole?" Igor Rynkevich said, adding that he would ask the court to postpone hearings.
Social Democratic Party leader Kozuli faces five years in prison if convicted of serious public order offenses and hooliganism following his arrest March 25 in a rally in the country's capital.
Lukashenko, who Washington has dubbed "Europe's last dictator", was reelected to a third term with a massive 83% of the vote. Although he has support in his homeland for maintaining relative stability in comparison with some other former Soviet republics, his human rights record has been fiercely criticized by international organizations.
The March elections were denounced by the opposition and international monitors as fraudulent, and opposition activists staged a five-day sit-in in Minsk's central Oktyabrskaya Square. A demonstration March 25 was broken up by police, and opposition representatives say at least one person died as a result.
