Witness In ‘Trade Unions Case’: They Threatened Me During Interrogation

The witnesses started withdrawing their testimonies on the second day of trial against Fiadynich and Komlik.

In the House of Justice, the court hearing in the criminal case against the leaders of the REP trade union was resumeed. They are charged with tax evasion in a particular large scale (part 2 of Article 243 of the Criminal Code) in the amount of 22,000 rubles, taking into account the denomination. For this they face a restriction of freedom for up to five years, or imprisonment for a term of three to seven years, writes tut.by.

On July 31, before the trial started, everyone greeted Henadz Fiiadynich with his birthday.

— Let me take a pucture on you on such an unusual birthday, — one of Fiadynich’s friends said.

— Dear colleagues, Henadz Fiadynich turns 61 today! Let us coinrgatulate him! — one of the present offered. The audience applauded, the trade union members gave flowers to the birthday man.

The hearing began with the interrogation of witness Mikalai Herasimenka, who joined the trade union in 1971, when he entered the radio engineering institute. He came to work in the trade union in 2012 and worked there until 2016 as a specialist in information work. In court, Herasimenka said that he had already refused the testimony given in the Investigatory Committee in August last year.

- I filed an official statement on the withdrawal of the testimony that I had given in the Investigatory Committee. Because during the interrogation in the UC, I was given only one document, where I was indicated as a suspect, by which I was shocked. During the interrogation they threatened me, they said that the convoy was nearby, that I would go to prison. For me it was shocking indeed. Questions were asked in the ultimative form, it was possible to answer only yes or no: whether I know people from the trade union, whether I went abroad - of course, yes. We went to Vilnius, where we participated in conferences, we studied, " Herasimenka said.

As for the accounts abroad, additional payments to other REP employees, the witness stated that he does not know anything. Herasimenka attended seminars in Lithuania with Komlik, Fiadynich, or other workers of the trade union. The REP leaders did not give money to him, did not ask him to transport it, and the witness doesn’t know whether other workers or managers carried money. According to him, Yukhnavets did not talk about any money she transported either.

— I didn’t carry any money there. Once they gave me an envelope, but it wasn’t a reward, there weren;t some thousands euros, as all the websites wrote yesterday. It was a compensation for the travel expenses for attending the seminar, and that’s it, — Herasimenka said.

In the protocol of the witness's interrogation in the Department of Financial Investigations, which was read by Judge Maryna Fiodarava, it is said that Herasimenka, in addition to his salary, received money from the union leaders in envelopes - about 600 rubles each month for the release of press materials. When he visited Lithuania with Fiadynich and Komlik, they asked the witness to carry money in envelopes to Minsk. He carried money eight times, and he didn’t know how much money was in each envelope. Other employees of the trade union also carried money from Vilnius to Minsk, just like Herasimenka, according to the protocol of his interrogation: Yesipovich, Yukhnavets, Pichushkina. In the interrogation report from the Department of Financial Investigations, the witness also provided information on opened bank accounts in Lithuania.

The second protocol of Herasimenka's interrogation states that he went to Lithuania for seminars as part of the trade union delegation, which also included Fiadynich and Komlik.

"Concerning the transportation of money in envelopes, I cannot say anything," the protocol of interrogation says.

— I signed these protocols without really reading them. The fact that I traveled eight times, there were envelopes — I did not say this, I asked the investigator in the IC to clarify it. Therefore, what was stated by me during the interrogations, and what I am saying now does not coincide. Also, I received no money, no 600 rubles for some of our leaflets. Unfortunately, the protocol was not written with my words. Nobody read me my rights and duties during the interrogation. They said: sign and then leave this room, I signed something without glasses, and I have poor eyesight. In addition, I saw in the documents that I was named as a suspect," Herasimenka said in court.

— So, once again, do you confirm that since October 20, 2011, returning to Belarus from the Republic of Lithuania, carried money in the envelopes and received a reward for this in the amount of 300 euros? — the State Prosecutor Vadzim kazei clarified.

— No, I deny this.

— Do youi confirm opening of bank accounts in Lithuania?

— The investigator had this information on his computer, I don’t know where they came from, — Herasimenka said.

Mikalai Pakhabau joined the union in 2004, worked there from 2007 to 2015, held the post of head of the regional branch of the trade union for the Minsk region, and then became deputy to Fiadynich. Pakhabau said that he traveled to Russia, Ukraine and Lithuania for seminars as part of the trade union activities. The trips were paid by the trade union, Pakhabau traveled with the leaders and members of the trade union.

When asked by the Prosecutor whether the leaders of the REP were giving money to Pakhabau for covering transport expenses when traveling to Minsk, the witness replied that this never happened and he never heard about this from any of his colleagues.

— I had a purely business relationship with the leaders, I was alien, we had no personal relations. So why offering me money, — Pakhabau laughed.

The judge also read out the testimony of the witness, in which it was said that Pakhabau had heard from the wife Zapravaryna, who is also a member of the trade union, that she "allegedly once, at the request of Komlik and Fiadynich, had taken some money to Belarus."

"I do not support this testimony, because I do not know if it was true or not," the witness said in court. "Until the time of my interrogation in the IC, I read on the Internet about some detention of an oppositionist on the border for the money that he was carrying.

It was this incident that we discussed with my wife."

As reported earlier, the court heard the witnesses on July 30. During the interrogation, the trade union’s former secretary Yulia Yukhnavets confessed having cooperated with the KGB as an agent since 2015.

The girl also told that during work in the union (from 2014 to 2016) she went to Vilnius with Fiadynich and Komlik several times and brought from there certain amounts that the union leaders received in a Lithuanian bank and asked Yukhnavets to pass this money to Minsk.

—The approximate amount was 5 thousand euros, the sum was announced by either Komlik or Fiadynich, — said the witness. — I counted the amount only once, I do not remember when. The nominal of the bank notes then seemed to be 500 euros. The money was not packed, only tied with an elastic band. When I was transporting the money across the border, I kept it in my bag.

The girl also told the names of other witnesses, who according to her also carried money from Vilnius to Minsk. These witnesses later, when speaking in court, refused their testimonies given during the interrogation, and said that the investigation had put pressure on them.

Witness Sniazhana Hryntsevich stated that the officers of the Department of Financial Investigations who interrogated her threatened her with prison, "they told me that a convoy was waiting for me, and my son would not see me at home".

"The officers of the Department of Financial Investigations told me what to write. Something I denied, something confirmed — participation in seminars, round tables. They dictated. I do not remember how I wrote the testimony, my condition was terrible," witness Hryntsevich said.