Minsk "outraged" by European Parliament`s resolution on subway bombing trial

The Belarusian foreign ministry has expressed “outrage” over the European Parliament’s February 16 resolution urging Alyaksandr Lukashenka to pardon Dzmitry Kanavalaw and Uladzislaw Kavalyow, sentenced to death in the subway bombing case of November 30, 2011.

“The European Parliament has de facto taken sides with the terrorists, questioning in an incompetent manner the conclusions, determinations and decisions made by the Belarusian court in the terror trial,” the ministry said in a statement issued on Friday.

“In addition, the European Parliament is flagrantly interfering with the administration of justice in a sovereign state, which is no compliment to it,” the ministry said.

In the resolution, the MEPs called on the Belarusian authorities to pardon the two young men and introduce a moratorium on the death penalty.

According to reports by human rights organizations, there are arguments showing that their trial was unfair, and that the investigation was marred by serious human rights abuses, the MEPs said.

Underlining that this "irreversible, cruel, inhumane and degrading punishment, which violates the right to life", is unacceptable, the MEPs deplored “the continuing failure of the Belarusian authorities to take any tangible steps towards abolishing the death penalty or imposing an immediate moratorium on it.”

They reiterated that the European Union and other international institutions had repeatedly urged the Belarusian authorities to abolish the death penalty.

Belarus remains the only country in Europe that uses the death penalty.