Prosecutor General has Nothing to Say about the Opposition Leaders Kidnapping, Has He? :: Charter'97 :: News

Law and order institutions of Belarus continue investigating the criminal cases for the claims on the disappeared citizens, declared Piotr Miklashevitch, prosecutor general of Belarus at the press-conference in Minsk. According to him, "the prosecutor general office, the ministry of local affairs and other law and order institutions continue investigating the sound criminal cases on the claims for disappeared people". Thus the Prosecutor General replied to the journalists` question how the cases of disappearance of the Belarusian opposition leaders and journalist in 1999-2000 have been investigated by the law and order institutions of Belarus.

In 1999 Viktar Ganchar, Vice-Speaker of the Supreme Soviet, Yuri Zakharenka, former minister for local affairs, Anatoli Krasovsky, businessman and public figure, were kidnapped and killed in Belarus in 1999. In 2000 the journalist Dmitry Zavatsky was kidnapped. International institutions suspect involvement of the high-ranked Belarusian functionaries in kidnapping and killing of the above-mentioned people, among the suspects are Uladzimir Navumau, minister for local affairs, Viktar Sheiman, Secretary of the Security Council, Dzmitri Pauliuchenka, commander -in-chief of the special regiment of the national guard, and Yuri Sivakou, the former minister for local affairs.

The authorities of Belarus have carried out not a single proper investigation of the opposition members kidnapping for all those years. The guilty have not be persecuted yet.