Lukashenka smiling

European specialists are to come to Minsk to take part in examination of the body of the journalist.

Belarusian journalist Aleh Byabenin died 40 days ago. But this date is for the family. Prosecutors have a different calendar: the term of prosecutor’s inquiry expired on October 3, but it was extended until November 3.

According to assistant prosecutor of the Minsk region Tatsyana Kalinina, only part of the comprehensive examination of the corpse of the journalists was completed. Prosecutors announced after his death that the inquiry would take less than a month. So, declaring the death of Aleh a suicide was not just hasty, but senselessly hasty. Moreover, the exact date of the death is not known yet. At first forensic scientists said it was September 3, the day when Aleh’s body was found in his summer house, but the death certificate reads for an unknown reason it was September 2.

The Belarusian authorities allowed OSCE specialists to join the inquiry. A forensic pathologist and a criminal expert from Sweden and Norway are expected to arrive in Minsk on October 25. All materials of the prosecutor’s inquiry are being translated into English now.

In the meantime, law-enforcement agencies are trying to press colleagues and friends of Byabenin who insisted on inviting foreign experts. For example, deputy prosecutor general Andrei Shved tried to reproach Byabenin’s colleagues in public. He told on TV addressing them: how immoral one can be not to think about the family of the dead person, for whom exhumation of the corpse will be a shock. According to Shved, exhumation is equal to abuse of corpse. By the way, the relatives don’t mind. Neither of them believes it was a suicide. But Alyaksandr Lukashenka didn’t think about Byabenin’s family when he said at a press conference for Russian journalists: “I say frankly, the first time when I heard about that journalist was when he hanged himself. He wrote something on the Internet, for the pro-opposition website Charter’97. Nobody has ever seen him and heard him here. To be honest, Shushkevich told such a prominent journalist can hardly be replaced.”

Lukashenka was smiling when he was telling this. He thought it was a good joke.