Who ordered beating of State Control Committee Head?

Consideration of a high-profiled case on beating of Zianon Lomats, State Control Committee head, starts in the Supreme Court of Belarus 5 November. The peculiarity of the consideration is that the case is closed to public and the names of the accused people haven’t been said.

It is known that there are four accused people: three KGB agents and one is a member of the State Secretariat of the Security Council. Prosecutor-General Piotr Miklashevich said it to journalists. According to him, two of the accused are waiting for a trial in a remand jail, and two of them have given recognizance not to leave. This information has already been known to the public. But the names of the accused still remain unknown to the public, as the prosecutor’s office refers to assumption of innocence, radio Svaboda reports.

But the people in the Supreme Court, where the trial is to take place, refused to tell the names of the accused, too. They said the information will appear at noon 5 November.

There is little information about the events with Zianon Lomats in Mahilou 12 June. After a week the prosecutor’s office said that the head of the State Control Committee had really been beaten. Later it became known about the detainment of KGB agents, who allegedly were dressed in militia uniform during the accident. Soon KGB head Stiapan Sukharenka and co-head Vasil Dzemiantei had to leave their posts, but officially it wasn’t said anything about the connection between those dismissals and the incident in Mahilou. By the way, Aliaksandr Lukashenka ordered to investigate the beating of Zianon Lomats. The investigation was secret. The trial will also be closed.

Former KGB agent Valer Kostka doesn’t believe anybody in KGB dared to attack Zianon Lomats by himself. Kostka doesn’t exclude it was a provocation from outside aimed to embroil the security officials. “When everybody is quarrelling with others and there is a concrete center where all go complain to, it is easy to direct”, Kostka thinks.

Hunan rights activist Harry Pahanyaila pays attention to the fact that the cases of high-ranked persons are closed to the public. The lawyer reminded the trial over former head of Belarusian Teleradiocompany Yahor Rybakou, case of co-chairmen of the ideological department at the president’s administration Uladzimir Kholad, accused of bribetaking.

“It violates the principles of our justice, laws and procedures. It doesn’t correspond to the interests of state and society. Nevertheless, it takes place. Almost all cases, where high-ranked persons are concerned, are closed to public. The authorities don’t want to wash their dirty linen in public. I don’t exclude there were some moments in this story that can compromise Lomats”, Harry Pahanyaila supposes.