Moscow, Mar. 3: Belarus on Friday handed a 10-year jail term to veteran activist Ales Bialiatski, a Nobel Prize winner and founder of the ex-Soviet authoritarian country's most prominent rights group.

Bialiatski was in the dock with two allies after they were jailed in the aftermath of historic demonstrations against the disputed 2020 re-election of Belarus's strongman President Alexander Lukashenko.

They were accused of smuggling cash into Belarus to allegedly fund opposition activities, according to rights group Viasna, meaning Spring in Belarusian, which Bialiatski founded in 1996. 

Viasna said he had been handed a 10-year sentence, while co-defendants Valentin Stefanovich was given nine years in prison and Vladimir Labkovich was jailed for seven.

During a hearing in January last year, all three pleaded not guilty.

Amnesty International has called the trial a "blatant act of injustice" and "revenge for their activism".

Bialiatski was among the three co-recipients of last year's Nobel Peace Prize, alongside a Russian and Ukrainian human rights group. 

Bialiatski, 60, founded Viasna shortly after Lukashenko became the first president of independent Belarus in 1994.

In 2011, Bialiatski was jailed for three years for tax evasion, in a move widely seen as politically-motivated in the wake of an earlier presidential election claimed by Lukashenko. -Agencies