Session on the bank sector development problems, held by Alexander Lukashenko last Friday, wasn’t marked by too high information saturation. The president, as usually, called on the bankers to be honest and live modest lives. Meantime, he added that the state wouldn’t take away all of the money from commercial banks. The main news of the meeting was the statement, voiced by the head of the Investigative committee Leonid Glukhovsky, claiming that police might shortly institute criminal procedures against the former Belpromstroibank’s president Nikolai Rakov. Seemingly, this his message was designed to become an additional stimulus in attracting extra funds for the spring sowing.

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Legal proceedings have been instituted against the “Belsnadservice Ltd.”. BELTA correspondent was told in the Department for financial research of the Committee for state control of Belarus that this enterprise had allegedly submitted to the “Belagroprombank” open joint stock company a deliberately false report on the income and losses for the first half of 2000 and had thus been given a 20mln rubles loan.

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At noon on February 11, on the forth anniversary since the arrest of the famous 13th Supreme Soviet parliamentary and businessman Andrei Klimov, the activists of the United Civil Party will form a “chain of those who care” near the jail in the Kalvariyskaya street of Minsk where Klimov is currently serving his term. As you remember, Andrei Klimov had been sentenced by the Leninsky court of Minsk to six years of imprisonment for alleged large-scale theft and forgery during the construction of the block of flats in the Lodochnaya street in Minsk. Andrei didn’t confess his guilt, his defense claimed absence of corpus delicti on his part, while the international and domestic human rights watchdogs stated the political motives behind the incarceration.

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Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor Lorne Craner met February 7 with Mikolai Markevich, Iosif Siaredzich, Andrei Bastunets, and Viachaslau Khadasousky, representatives of independent media
in Belarus, and reiterated the strong support of the United States for those advocating freedom of expression and other fundamental rights in Belarus.

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There ended the court investigation at the process, held behind closed doors, over the group of the former “Almaz” riot police officer Valery Ignatovich. BelaPAN reports from the informed sources that the jury has considered a few appeals. For instance, one of the representatives of the victim’s side petitioned the court over summoning the witnesses of the confiscation of the journal, recording the dates when the execution gun had been issued. They explained this by the absence in court of certain documents, which had originally been included into the criminal case on Dmitry Zavadsky’s disappearance. Among such documents are the rapports of the head of the investigation department Oleg Alkaev and head of the criminal police Nikolai Lopatik, protocols of seizure of the gun’s issue records, along with the letter of the then prosecutor general of Belarus to his Russian colleagues, featuring a request to send to Belarus a special set of equipment to locate and unearth the human remains.

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The Belarusian Helsinki Committee addressed Ivan Bahura, the head of the colony number 15/1 where the deputy of the 13th Supreme Soviet Anderi Klimau is serving his sentence, with an appeal to submit materials to the court about his possible conditional earlier release.

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Mass labor force curtailment started at the Minsk tractor plant. The administration explains it by the need to economize financial resources. Radio Svaboda quotes deputy director general Nikolai Stukach as saying that the plant’s leadership ruled to reduce the number of manpower by 10%. “That’s approximately 1900 people, working for the Minsk tractor plant. In first turn, we will get rid of the vacancies. Secondly, we’ll dismiss those, who receive any social allowance. You know, there’s a group of people, who have already reached the retirement age but keep working. After that we will move on to the main group of workers,” – said Nikolai Stukach. At present, the MTP dwells in confusion and anxious expectation.

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