Studio Total: Investigation Committee covers high-ranking officers

The Swedish PR firm points out errors in the statement of the Investigation Committee relating to the “teddy bear attack”.

The website received a letter from Studio Total saying the information that an aircraft crossed the Belarusian-Lithuanian border near the village of Baranavichy in Iuye district is not true.

“We passed later and further south,” the letter reads.

Studio Total supposes that the error was made deliberately to accuse innocent border guards and save the posts of high-ranking officers.

“We have already told you that we are open to answering questions,” the authors  write addressing to Alyaksandr Lukashenka and offered to tell how the flight had been performed.

“Who knows, maybe some day someone else will try to pass your borders, maybe less peaceful than us?” they write.

A Swedish aircraft intruded into Belarus's airspace from Lithuania on July 4. Hundreds of teddy bears with parachutes and leaflets supporting free speech and human rights were dropped from the plane.

Belarus initially denied the fact of the flight, but later Alyaksandr Lukashenka dismissed the air defence commander, threatened Lithuania and expelled the Swedish ambassador. Belarus sent an official request to the Prosecutor General's Office of Lithuania asking for legal assistance in the case.

Two Belarusians – photographer Anton Surapin, who was the first to post photos of teddy bears, and estate agent Syarhei Basharymau, who was reported to rent a flat in Minsk to the Swedish activists – were arrested in connection with the teddy bear stunt. They were accused of aiding the illegal border crossing. Both may face up to 7 years in prison. They were released from the KGB jail on their own recognizance, but the charges against them were not dropped.

“The investigation found out that at 05:57 a.m. on 4 July 2012 nationals of the Kingdom of Sweden illegally crossed the state border of the Republic of Belarus on board of a light aircraft at an extremely low altitude near the village of Baranavichy, Iuye district from the side of Lithuania. The crew of the aircraft dropped teddy bears over the territory of Belarus,” the Investigation Committee said in a statement today.