Family of Yury Zakharanka ask German Foreign Minister to help detect his abductors of their loved one

Alyaksandr Lukashenka knowledge’s by his in the cases of disappeared Belarusian politicians can cause a large international scandal.

Several persons have started to attach government agencies of Germany with a request to explain who of those involved in abductions is hiding on the territory of this country.

As we have informed, on June 10 in an interview of Alyaksandr Lukashenka published by the Russian newspaper “Zavtra”. The Belarusian leader touched upon the topic of abducted and assassinated Belarusian politicians there. In particular, Lukashenka stated: “They say there is a lack of democracy in Belarus; that Lukashenka is a dictator, and people are disappearing without traces in Belarus. Three persons have perished, and mass media are still repeating this. Lukashenka has killed them as opponents of the regime. In fact, in two cases these were murders for commercial reasons… Traces of murderers have been recently found in Germany.”

If Lukashenka said the truth, it’s a bombshell. For more than 10 years nothing was known about the reasons or culprits or whereabouts of Yury Zakharanka, Viktar Hanchar, Anatol Krasouski, and this statement has appeared all of a sudden. It is natural that relatives of the abducted are trying to find out the truth. Zinaida Hanchar has asked the Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights to study this information given by Alyaksandr Lukashenka, the leader of the United Civil Party Anatol Lyabedzka has addressed Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, with a request to find out who is hiding from Belarusian justice. And recently it has been reported that the family of Yury Zakharanka had also sent requests to relevant ministers of German government.

To Foreign Minister of Germany

Mr Frank-Walter Steinmeier

Dear Mister Steinmeier!

Our family has learnt from mass media that Belarusian president Alyaksandr Lukashenka had stated that assassinations of three persons with which he is charged by the Belarusian opposition and the European community, had been done “for business reasons”, and traces of murderers have been found in Germany recently. Nobody doubts that our father and husband is one of the abducted, former Interior Minister of Belarus Yury Zakharanka, abducted in Minsk on May 7, 1999, and oppositional politicians Viktar Hanchar and Anatol Krasouski, abducted in Minsk on September 16, 1999. Before this statement, Lukashenka many times assured the world community quite the opposite, that these three persons are hiding abroad. According to the official materials of investigation, Yury Zakharanka is still on the list of missing persons. And now Lukashenka officially states that they were murdered, that means that he has information about the circumstances of these crimes and about the persons who have committed them. He names Germany as the place where they live. How could it happen that looking for a refuge from chasing by these persons, we are in the same country with these murderers again? We are addressing you with a request to take measures to detect and detain these criminals and put them on trial for grave crimes on the territory of Belarus.

With deep respect, Zakharankas family, who received political asylum in Germany in 2001

Volha Zakharanka

(Yury Zakharanka’s widow)

Alena Artsymovich

(Yury Zakharanka’s daughter).

The same letter has been sent by the family of Yury Zakharanka to the Federal Minister of Interior Wolfgang Schäuble.

The senders of the letter are waiting for answers from the officials, and one cannot doubt that they will receive the answers. And it means that either foreign officials would find out Lukashenka in a lies, or light would be cast on the fate of disappeared politicians.