Zinaida Hanchar: “It’s Dusting the Eyes of World Community” :: Charter'97 :: News

“A so-called “reopening of the case of Viktar Hanchar’s disappearance” is another dusting the eyes of the Inter-Parliamentarian Union and the world community in general. It is just an imitation of some activity. In reality the investigation is not conducted, even family members have not been informed about its “reopening”. Within six years a huge number of my appeals and complaints have remained unanswered. It is said all the time that “new facts” had been discovered, but it remains just talks, and it is done only for misleading the international community,” told Zinaida Hanchar, the wife of Viktar Hanchar, the vice Prime Minister of Belarus abducted in 1999, commenting on the information about Minsk prosecutor’s Office’s reopening of the investigation in the case of Viktar Hanchar’s abduction.

The Prosecutor’s office of Minsk reopens investigation in the case related to the disappearance of the former vice-Prime Minister of Belarus Viktar Hanchar in 1999, the Interfax was told by deputy head of the commission on legislation and legal questions of the so-called “chamber of representatives” Anatol Salayou. “Minsk Prosecutor’s Office reopens the case in connection with the discovery of new facts,” Salayou said. He also noted that “Hanchar’s case” was discussed at the session of the Standing Committee on democracy and human rights’ problems by the MPs of the Inter-parliamentarian union in Geneva. “Hanchar’s case was discussed for monitoring, we exchanged the information with the representatives of the committee,” A.Salayou said.

As Interfax informed earlier with a reference to the press center of the Republican Prosecutor’s office, the criminal case on the fact of disappearance without traces of V.Hanchar and a businessman Anatol Krasouski has been reopened by the Minsk Prosecutor’s Office on September 20, 1999.

In their turn, representatives of the Minsk Prosecutor’s Office refused to inform what new facts were the grounds for reopening the case, explaining it by the secret of investigation. In this connection the representatives of the Prosecutor’s office noted that “reopening the investigation in the criminal case is a usual procedure. New documents, new witnesses emerge, and they are grounds for reopening investigation”. The news agency was also told that “It is still early to say about the prospects of this case”.

It was said by Minsk Prosecutor’s Office’s representatives, that “investigation is reopened not for the first time in this case”. In the middle of the year 2003 the Minsk prosecutor’s office resumed the investigation in the case of the disappeared Viktar Hanchar and Anatol Krasouski, which had been stopped a half a year earlier.