Aleh Vouchak: “Fact of elections falsifications is not denied by anyone…”

Lawyer Aleh Vouchak calls the answer of Prosecutor General Ryhor Vasilevich to the “address of 50” “a usual runaround”.

Vouchak states that conclusions about absence or presence of a crime are done basing upon documents, and not without proofs. The fact of rigging election results is not denied by anyone, by the way.

“Under Article 174 of the Code of criminal procedure, the Prosecutor General’s office was either to open a criminal case basing upon the application, or deny opening the criminal case in the form of an order to dismiss criminal complaint or to give an answer that the application is forwarded to another investigating agency according to its competence. The Prosecutor General’s office hasn’t done any of these things. Instead of that, Vasilevich sent a usual letter created without interrogating of citizens who signed the address, and without interrogating Yarmoshyna, Lukashenka, and primarily, current members of the Central Election Commission. First the Prosecutor’s Office was to require all the documents on elections, interrogate all the concerned officials, and only basing upon that make conclusions whether a crime has taken place or not,” stated the human rights activist in an interview to “Belarusian Partisan”.

Vouchak noted:

“The fact of rigging election results is not denied by anyone: it means a criminal action was to be initiated, and those facts investigated in the framework of the case. This case cannot be given up. Signees of the “address of 50” have a right to address to the court, as there are elements of official crime in this case under Article 426 (abuse of power). It should be pushed for through a court for an additional enquiry to be made by the prosecutor’s office. The president doesn’t have power to issue commissions to change per cents of votes,” he is convinced.

The human rights activist is sure that in the run-up to the two new electoral campaigns, the democratic community should insist on Lidziya Yarmoshyna and the total makeup of the Central Election Committee’ being removed from office and not allowed to perform such an important mission, as Lukashenka has stated many times that elections results had been rigged, and officials of the CEC had been taking part in that.

“Elements of crime under Article 426 (abuse of power) are also visible in the actions of the CEC officials, as they signed the results of the elections. And by such an answer the Prosecutor General concealed all the violations of the law, and in the future he can face criminal responsibility for intentional failure to fulfil actions contradicting the interests of his service, who could and was able to perform such official responsibilities, and which significantly violated rights and legal interests of citizens and public interests.

In order to check and confirm that Ryhor Vasilevich hadn’t made any enquiry, ten or more signees of the address should go to the prosecutor’s office to study the results of the enquiry. And if only the address of the citizens would be among those materials, it would confirm once again that there was no objective and full enquiry held. However the law on citizens’ addresses obliges any official to study all the arguments stated by citizens,” Aleh Vouchak said.

The General Prosecutor’s Office hasn’t found rigging election results, states the answer to the address of a group of Belarusian oppositional politicians and public leaders with a demand to open a criminal case founded upon the statement of Alyaksandr Lukashenka about rigging presidential election results in 2006. The address was sent to the Prosecutor General Prosecutor’s Office on October 24.

The reason for the address was an interview of Alyaksandr Lukashenka published on August 27 by a Russian newspaper Izvestiya. “You should know that 93% voted for me in the last election. And I confessed then that they simply started to press on me to falsify results together… I ordered to make not 93%, but something about 80%, I do not remember how many… as more than 90% cannot be swallowed psychologically. But it was the truth.”

The address was signed by the former presidential candidate Alyaksandr Kazulin, the chairman of the United Civil Party Anatol Lyabedzka, a former Chairman of the Supreme Council Myachyslau Hryb, film directors Viktar Dashuk and Yury Khashchavatski, trade union leaders Alyaksandr Yarashuk and Alyaksandr Bukhvostau, politicians Syarhei Kalyakin, Vintsuk Vyachorka, Mikola Statkevich, Viktar Ivashkevich and others.

In an answer of General Prosecutor Ryhor Vasilevich stated that “there are no information about any other violations of the Electoral Code during vote count and announcing election results”.