Who gains from Aleh Byabenin’s death?

The Prosecutor’s office of Minsk region refused to launch a probe into the death of Aleh Byabenin.

At Electroname.com website Aleh Byabenin’s friend Fiodar Paulyuchenka writes who stands to gain from the death of the founder of charter97.org website.

Three months have passed since the tragic death of Aleh Byabenin. Aleh was my friend. I am thinking about that all the time, and pain of this loss has not subsided even for a day. I cannot even imagine what his wife and parents have gone through and are going through now. The easiest thing is to keep silent, to forget and to give up everything, as life goes on. But Aleh’s death haunts my mind. I wrote and spoke on many occasions that I do not believe it was a suicide. These were not the words of despair, I had time to think it over, and the more I compare the evidence, the less doubts I have. And I’ve had enough doubts, believe me. Every man has moments of weakness, no one is impervious to faint-heartedness. But that’s not what has happened to Aleh.

Over the three months I offered my explanations in the prosecutor’s office several times, I talked to the OSCE experts, to acquaintances and colleagues of Aleh. At some stage it seemed that the obvious things would be heard, and the prosecutor’s office would at least try to create an impression of holding investigation. But as the deputy prosecutor of Minsk region Mikalai Pilyankevich informed, everything is clear to them. It was as clear to them three months ago, during my first questioning. But other things make be indignant. I was not expecting any eye-openers from prosecutors who are working under the dictatorial regime. And they were not hiding themselves that they were not interested in other stories. After the tragedy there was a pause – there was fear, confusion and realization that we are living in a different country from that time on. In the first minutes all those who had courage had spoken their minds, and later there was a vacuum, which was filled by mud. And with time more and more mud was thrown. The first one to unsluice that was Alyaksandr Lukashenka himself, which is not a surprise for me – he got mixed up, once he called it “a suicide” and later “a criminal act”. The Belarusian TV gave renditions of the story in every key.

But a personal shock for me was a so-called independent investigation of the BelaPAN informational agency, which had unambiguously drawn a conclusion that Aleh’s colleagues are implicated in his death.

Due t the character of my work I daily monitor the informational picture of the day in Belarus and I can say for certain what had caused this or that article. For the last half a year with much interest I follow “leaks” of a journalist of BelaPAN Company “Belorusskiye Novosti” Viktar Fedarovich. The journalist had attracted attention by being unusually well-informed about all the conflicts and “the career” of the most controversial Lukashenka’s associate, Viktar Sheiman. The official, who had fallen out of grace, reminds about himself for more than half a year thanks to “Belorusskiye Novosti” website and Viktar Fedarovich, and firmly holds number one position in the news, and the largest portal of the country, TUT.by, in its turn retranslate these news. Moreover, Viktar Fedarovich is “in the forefront” of the infighting of the defense and law enforcement agencies of the country in the case of Sheiman’s teammate, Svyatlana Bajkova. He was even invited to the prosceutor’s office to give explanations.

And it was Viktar Fedarovich who became the “exposing mouthpiece” who “unveils the mystery” in Aleh’s case. The journalist has simply taken fragmentary facts, speculations and parts of the prosecutor’s office investigation materials (where a usual journalist could have taken them from?) and glued them together in the way someone needed that. And cui prodest? Who stands to gain from that?

One cannot but recall an article by Svyatlana Kalinkina, who is much respected by me. She tired to propose a “who gains?” version in the case of Aleh, and she started to receive threats immediately. I remind that according to the journalist it was Viktar Sheiman who could profit from Aleh’s death. Intimidated Lukashenka was to return the strongman in disfavor in his inner circle (and it has happened – in fact, Sheiman has become Lukashenka’s campaign chief).

During the second interrogation in the prosecutor’s office I tried to attract attention of investigators to these facts, but they wouldn’t listen to me. The only possibility is left, to get across these misgivings via the web, my website and my readers. I hope that some day, after the change of power in our country, independent investigators will turn attention to these astonishing things.