Priest Lazar on recognizance not to leave

In the morning on 4 December KGB officially confirmed that priest Uladzislau Lazar had been released from jail.

“State Security Committee as agreed with Prosecutor General’s office changed the measure of restriction for Lazar based in the article 119 of the Code of Criminal Procedure from custodial placement to recognizance not to leave and behave appropriately”, - the head of KGB’s press-service Artur Strekh reported. The investigation of the criminal case, according to him, goes on.

Information on Lazar’s release from KGB jail came out in the evening on 3 December, BelaPAN reports. On the web-site of the Roman Catholic Church in Belarus the following message was posted: “Apostolic nunciature in the Republic of Belarus was informed by competent country’s insitutions that there were no more grounds for keeping priest Uladzislau Lazar in KGB jail”. At the same time the message highlighted that “the decision was made that during the investigation, which was still going, the priest had to be permanently located at one place, having the freedom of movement and actions in accordance to certain norms with the obligation to register himself at a police station on a daily basis. The apostolic nuncio was asked to take priest Lazar from KGB jail”.

We would remind that Lazar was detained a few days after Aliaksandr Lukashenka had reported to the journalists on 26 July that an agent of Belarusian special services has been detained for working for foreign states. “We recently detained a traitor, who was a special service agent and who was linked to foreign states via representatives of the Catholic Church. Not only did he leak information, but people, who worked abroad, suffered from his activities”, - Lukashenka said. On 29 July the information on priest Lazar’s detention was confirmed by a representative of the Roman Catholic Church in Belarus.

Uladzislau Lazar’s imputed guilt was passing money and material valuables to a person, accused of espionage for another state.