“Spy case”: Bahdanau given status of witness

Illya Bahdanau, a suspect in the case of “spying”, was given the status of a witness.

“I was called in Vitebsk about two weeks ago. My lawyer filed a motion and I was given the status of a witness,” Illya Bahdanau told Euroradio.

Illya Bahdanau is a Polatsk-based activist of the organising committee to found the Belarusian Christian Democracy party. He was detained at his home by KGB officers on November 9, 2012, at the time when Haidukou was arrested. He was interrogated in Minsk and released on obligation not to disclose details of the investigation. He was suspected of treason.

According to official information, Haidukou was detained as he was “installing a dead drop with the information interesting for foreign secret services”. Many find this accusation ridiculous. European Belarus civil campaign released a statement saying the activist was detained for distributing Charter'97 newspaper. Human rights activists link prosecution of Haidukou to his pro-opposition views and explain it with attempts to scare young activists.