Investigator Alikhver avoids prison?

An internal investigation had been launched against an investigator of Mikalai Autukhovich's case two weeks before he left the country.

The reason for the investigation was disappearance of documents from a case of another convicted person, which was investigated by Mikalai Alikhver, Radio Svaboda reports.

Businessman from Hrodna Syarhei Surba was accused of carrying out illegal business activity in 2006. Alikhver investigated his case simultaneously with the first case of political prisoner Mikalai Autukhovich. Surba was sentenced to a year of restriction of freedom.

“I later applied to the financial investigation department to find the documents that had been seized from me, but had not been showed to a court. It turned out that they disappeared. An equipment lease agreement disappeared too. An internal investigation was launched against Alikhver in connection with disappearance of the documents. Two weeks later he left his work and moved to the US,” Surba said.

Under article 377 of the Criminal Court of Belarus, “stealing, destroying, damaging or hiding official documents” is punished with up to 2 years in prison.

Mikalai Alikhver, a senior investigator at the Department of Financial Investigations of the State Control Committee for the Hrodna region, who had investigated the first case of Mikalai Autukhovich, was reported some days ago to have moved to the US for permanent residence.