Scoundrels

A daughter of a businessman who was going to file a lawsuit against Lukashenka has been kidnapped.

A new trend appeared yesterday in Belarus. If earlier “unknown persons” abducted and took to forests opposition activists, now they decided that it's time to take their children to a forest. On Saturday, July 27, a 16-year-old daughter of businessman and activist from Babruisk Viachaslau Sheleh was abducted. Details of the incident appeared today.

It happened at 6:00, when Natasha Sheleh was jogging round a school stadium. “My daughter usually lives with me. By my former wife has a disability, so Natasha has moved to her mother to help her during the summer holidays,” Viachaslau says. “That morning, my wife called me and said that our daughter hadn't returned home after jogging. I rushed to her and we went to the stadium, but there was nobody there. I understood Natasha had been kidnapped.”

“Eyes to the floor, you bitch!”

The businessman had grounds to suppose so: Natasha already had threats from unknown people a month ago.

“It happened on June 28,” Viachaslau recalls. “My daughter was leaving her mother's flat. Two shaven-headed strongly built men in large sunglasses covering their eyes and eyebrows were waiting for her on the stair landing. They caught her and dragged down the stairs so that neighbours couldn't see anything through a peephole. The men raised her arms and pressed her against the wall.”

The shaven-headed men began to threatened Natasha rudely saying that she mustn't go out and talk to anyone, otherwise they would take her to a forest and rape. Natasha tried to look at their faces, but they shouted every time she tried to raise her head: “Eyes to the floor, you bitch!”

The men then ran away. Natasha didn't tell her parents about the incident. Next morning, when she was leaving home, she again saw the same men on the stairs. The girl lost consciousness. A woman, who accidentally entered the building, brought the girl to her senses. Natasha told everything to her parents.

Familiar pattern: paint and forest

Having failed to find his daughter at the stadium and near it, the businessman called the police. Police officers said they could start a search operation only in three days. They said the girl probably fled her home voluntary.

“I said I knew exactly that it was a kidnapping, because she had had threats before. But no policemen came to us,” Sheleh says. “We called again 40 minutes later and they sent a district police officer to us. An investigation team arrived at 11:00.”

Some minutes after the investigators arrived, Viachaslau received a call from an unknown number. It was his daughter. She said she didn't know her whereabouts. The owner of the phone said she was near the village of Shchatkova, 15 kilometres from Babruisk. Natasha's parents drove to take the girl home. No police officers accompanied them.

“We found Natasha in a desolate place,” Viachaslau recalls. “The rascals, who took her out of the town, knew exactly that the road was rarely used. Natasha was standing on the side of the road covered in black paint: her face, arms, clothes – everything was in paint. Her tracksuit was torn. She had bruises all over her body. She apparently was being dragged along the ground. Natasha said in tears that she had a strike to the back of her head as she was jogging in the morning. She lost consciousness and came around in a forest. She managed to find the road, but no one wanted to stop before a girl smeared with paint. One driver finally stopped and gave his cell phone to call her parents. We thank him for that.”

Natasha, after her parents found her in the forest. A picture was made by the girl's relatives.

The parents returned home and called an ambulance. Natasha was taken to hospital. She is in the neurosurgical unit now. The paint, similar to those used for fingerprinting, was removed from skin only with special chemical agents, because neither soap nor petrol helped.