Oppositionists’ Money Seized At Customs Office Taken By KGB :: Charter'97 :: News

Finally, it got out where the money regularly seized taken by Belarusian customs officers from oppositionists disappear. Today the claim of the chairman of the executive committee of the United Civil Party (UCP) Syarhei Alfer t the customs office pf the National airport Minsk has been dismissed. On March 25 Belarusian customs officers seized USD 80 and Euro 135 from Syarhei Alfer. At the trial held in the court of Kastrychnitski district of Minsk, customs officers told that they do not have that money. The money was passed to the KGB (State Security Committee) for examination. The KGB has not finished the examination yet, those four months have passed, which violates all norms.

As said by customs officers, the grounds seizing money were suspicions that Mr. Alfer had forged money. At the same time, currency of the UCP deputy chairman Yaraslau Ramanchuk and a civil activist Volha Karach was seized under the same pretext. Besides, Yaraslau Ramanchuk’s laptop was confiscated.

More than 4 months have passed since the incident, but the money hasn’t been returned despite of frequent addresses of S. Alfer. S. Alfer decided to go to court and sued the customs office demanding to give money back.

As said by him, the court hadn’t turned attention to the fact that seizure of money was illegal. “To seize money from me, an administrative action should have been brought up against me on charges of possessing forged money, and seize money. But an administrative report had not been drawn up, and money were simply confiscated,” S. Alfer said.

The head of the UCP executive committee believes that the court ruling was a political one, and not based on the law. “If my claim would be sustained, it would mean that the customs office should automatically give back small sums of money seized by customs office on analogous reasons from dozens of oppositionists,” S. Alfer said.

As we have informed, a few months ago money of the international coordinator of the Charter’97 Andrei Sannikov were seized in the same way. USD 1,040 and Euro 260 were seized from him during a search. Though he was given a personal search document, customs officers told that money could have been forged. The money hasn’t been returned to him.

Photo: Chairman of Border Troops Committee of Belarus Alexander Pavlovsky(right) and KGB chairman Stepan Sukhorenko