Former MAZ Assistant Director General Applied for Political Asylum in Poland :: Charter'97 :: News

Former deputy director general of the Minsk car-building factory Alexander Yakovlev, who set off to Poland in November 2000, applied for political shelter there. Yakovlev had to do it after the Belarusian procuracy appealed to the Polish authorities with a request to extradite former MAZ director general back home.

The man, once responsible for the MAZ foreign policy, has been legally staying in the town of Vrotslav for more than a year now. Yakovlev is convinced that the Belarusian procuracy persecutes him for political reasons. By the way, an order for his arrest was filed by the Belarusian side back in April last year, although the Poles opened an extradition case not until late November. Yakovlev got arrested and imprisoned for three weeks. In the end of January they will hold the second trial on his possible banishment. Why now?

According to the man himself, certain sources informed him that after the recent anti-terrorism summit in Warsaw the Belarusian representatives had possibly passed over to the Polish side the list of the Belarusian nationals, who are dwelling in Poland but are due to be extradited to Belarus. Officially the Belarusian investigative bodies charge Yakovlev with currency contraband during his family’s travel abroad and criminal money-laundering.

“For instance, they assert that I’m a smuggler,” – tells in an interview to the Radio Svaboda Alexander Yakovlev: “They prove it by saying that the customs officers don’t have the papers, confirming that I carried the currency with me. 1,5 years passed since then but it is only now that the KGB all of a sudden decided that I had committed a crime and never specified the currency in the customs documents, although I had surely done that. Anyway, it appears that the KGB has been waiting for 1,5 years, realizing that I’m a smuggler?”

When inquired about the true motives behind his persecution, Yakovlev replied: “Why did Stalin lock smart people in jail? That’s the same reason why they do it in Belarus now. They simply need people who silently obey their orders. Anyone, who’s got an opinion of his own and normally perceives the situation, is dangerous to the regime.”

When asked whether the state leadership could suspect him of being disloyal to the authorities, Yakovlev said: “Only that I didn’t allow my subordinates to pass over the information to KGB without my written consent. But it was my determination, for they showed up in my office every day and sought to recruit my colleagues. So, instead of attending political information lessons as in the socialism times I met with the workers twice. They asked me how they were supposed to survive on such miserable wages. Then I went to the leadership, saying that either I would tell people the truth or wouldn’t meet with them at all, not willing to lie. Same happened ahead of the elections in the “house of representatives”, when they demanded from plants’ directors to make sure that their subordinates vote for the state-favored candidates. Instead, I told my workers to vote as their conscience tells them. This, of course, couldn’t go unnoticed.”