Head of Lithuanian MIA calls upon providing a Belarusian soldier with an asylum

The minister of Interior of Lithuania doesn’t want to make the mistake which costed Ales Bialiatski’s freedom once again.

One day before the court’s verdict the minister of Interior of Lithuania Arturas Melianas informed that he addressed the Migration Department asking to reconsider the issue of providing the Belarusian military runaway Stsiapan Zakharchanka with an asylum, Interfax reports.

“The court will make a decision on this matter; however I addressed the Migration Department and once again asked to assess and weight out all the set of circumstances”, - said Malianas for the press-release.

We would remind that the Vilnius district’s court should take a decision on Friday whether to satisfy the appeal of the Belarusian citizen on the Migration Department’s decision to refuse him an asylum and temporary protection.

Melianas states that the Migration Department should take into account the “human factor” and possible political consequences, “which appear not only when one escape from a neighboring country, but also with the apprehensions to return caused by well-known and easily foreseeable consequences”.

According to the minister, taking decisions on such issues it is necessary to have consultations with the Ministry of Interior in order not to repeat the mistake when the Ministry of Justice gave the Belarusian regime the data about the banking accounts of Ales Bialiatski.

The case of 22-year old Stsiapan Zakharchanka was considered by the Vilnius district’s court in the beginning of October. The Belarusian claims the he deserted from the Belarusian army as he refused to sign papers about the use of physical force against civil population. He asks the Migration Department to consider his case again and in due course. The Migration Department states that it took a grounded and legal decision on the case of the Belarusian citizen and there will be no threat for him at home. The Lithuanian Prosecutor General’s office received several requests to help to extradite Zakharchanka back to Belarus but refuses from detailed comments.