Uladzimir Baradach: Results of OSCE experts’ work must be presented to public

The former commander of the special task force brigade comments on the visit of the OSCE experts to Minsk related to Aleh Byabenin’s case.

If the OSCE experts who visited Minsk to study the circumstances of Aleh Byabenin’s death, would issue their opinion only basing upon the official documents provided by the authorities to them, their opinion would not differ from the official story which presents the tragedy as a suicide. That’s what special services Colonel Uladzimir Baradach said.

He has written that in his letter to “Belarusian partisan”:

- Criminals are improving their skills: they have learnt to stage a suicide without witnesses. They can conveyorize this affair in such a way. Just imagine how many oppositionists might “die by their own hands out of regret”, while their nerves snap even before the election.

The OSCE forensic experts have finished their work and left. The death of a public figure, Aleh Byabenin, has raised many doubts and controversial interpretations of the society. The society has not agreed to the hasty conclusions of the investigatory agencies about the suicide of the journalist. That is why the results of the work of the experts, their substantiated opinion should be known to the wide public.

An OSCE expert has visited us already and studied the case of Autukhovich concerning “preparation of a terrorist attack against governor Sauchanka”. The expert issued a conclusion that there were no violations by investigatory bodies, and agreed that there had been reasonable grounds for accusation of those persons under the article “Terrorism”. He had been presented such convincing proofs that they caused no doubts of the OSCE expert. He agreed to the prosecution completely.

He could not make a different conclusion. He studied testimonies of witnesses Paremskaya, Kozel, Shnitko, Puzikau, who gave evidence against Autukhovich. He met Artsyukevich, Kozel, who were kept in custody, sentenced to 7 years, and they admitted that they had committed their crimes on the order of Autukhovich. He could not even imagine that the agencies of preliminary investigation had pressed these witnesses to give false evidence. How can a specialist from a civilized country even suppose that law-enforcing agencies in our country can commit mass crimes in our country? And the key witness Laryn who “wanted to kill the governor” on Autukhovich’s “order”, dispelled his doubts completely.

The expect could not suspect that the house of the client was not seen from the firing location of Laryn, and there were two multistory buildings in the way of the two grenades. Laryn was not thinking of firing, and moreover, the grenade-launcher model (which was unknown to the expert) cannot fire. Only during the trial all witnesses had courage to state that they had been pressed to give false evidence. But only in our country it was possible for prosecutor Safarau to ask to sentence Autukhovich to 20 years after all this lawlessness. There is no use of coming to us for any experts with a different set of mind.

If this OCSE commission had not carries out its own investigation, but made conclusions on the files presented by our investigators, their conclusion cannot contradict the official ones...”

The founder and editor of charter97.org website Aleh Byabenin was found hanged on September 3 in his summer house on the outskirts of Minsk. Law-enforcing agencies hastily stated that it had been suicide. However Aleh Byabenin’s death raises many questions. Forensic experts are offering different dates of the journalist’s death. Aleh Byabenin had not left any suicide note. Friends and colleagues of the journalist state that there were marks of violence on his body. Aleh Byabenin was a key member in the team of the oppositional presidential candidate Andrei Sannikov.