Justice Ministry Complains Over Lebedko’s Alleged Offense :: Charter'97 :: News

Anatoly Lebedko “overlooks the country’s legislation”, assume the officials from the Belarusian Justice Ministry, who disliked the recent UCP leader’s publication in “Narodnaya Volya” of March 4, entitled “Inquisition”. In this article the famous politician tells a story of his strife with the KGB concerning the illicitly issued official reprimand.

On November 5, 2002, if you remember, Lebedko was officially reprimanded by KGB in written form, reminds BelaPAN. The document stated that Lebedko developed confidential contacts with “foreign residents, who had been identified as spies or implicated in foreign surveillance activities”.

In his article “Inquisition” Lebedko states the groundless character of KGB complaints and concludes that KGB is currently concentrating on the “political search” and “struggle with the dissidents”. The article also reads that the Belarusian special services turned into a part of “thoughtless, unbalances and ugly system”, another integral component of which is the judiciary and courts.

The counter-appeal of the Justice Ministry over the matter, reads that Lebedko “rudely criticized the court of the Central district of Minsk in particular and the whole judiciary in general, as well as the officials from the state bodies, which are called to protect the state order, sovereignty and security of the country”.

Anatoly Lebedko himself tends to believe that “ it is no business of the Justice Ministry at all”. “In my article “Inquisition” I acted as a private citizen Lebedko, rather than a party leader. What does UCP have to do with that, I wonder? That’s real absurdity,” – said Lebedko in an interview to BelaPAN. As deemed by the politician, the Ministry “simply obeyed the order, emanating either from the presidential administration or KGB itself”.