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Twenty Years Since Hanchar, Krasouski Were Abducted In Minsk

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Twenty Years Since Hanchar, Krasouski Were Abducted In Minsk

We remember!

Twenty years ago, opposition leader Viktar Hanchar and businessman Anatol Krasouski were abducted in Minsk.

On the evening of September 16, 1999, they arrived at a bathhouse located on Fabrychnaya Street, 20 in Minsk. The last time they were seen was at about 22.35, when both left the building and got into Krasouski's Jeep Cherokee.

The criminal case on the disappearance of Hanchar and Krasouski was opened by the Minsk Prosecutor’s Office. According to the investigation, when examining the surrounding area, fragments of plastic diffusers of light-signaling devices of the car, traces of vehicle braking and its impact on a tree, as well as traces of blood were found. An analysis of the evidence gathered in the case, including the testimony of witnesses, suggests that Hanchar and Krasouski were forcibly abducted.

Opposition leaders Yury Zakharanka and Viktar Hanchar, businessman Anatol Krasouski and journalist Dzmitry Zavadzki disappeared without a trace in 1999-2000. Late in the evening of May 7, 1999, in the area of Zhukouski Avenue in Minsk, Yury Zakharanka was abducted and taken away by car in an unknown direction. On the night of September 17, 1999, in the area of Fabrychnaya Street 20a, politician Viktar Hanchar and businessman Anatol Krasouski were abducted. On the afternoon of July 7, 2000, on the way from his home in Minsk to the airport, journalist Dzmitry Zavadzk i was captured by a group of armed people in the amount of 5-6 people, among whom there was an active fighter of the special anti-terrorism unit “Almaz” of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Belarus Maksim Malik, and former officer of the same unit Valer Ihnatovich. The corpses of Zakharanka, Hanchar, Krasouski and Zavadzki have not yet been found.

The term “death squadrons” arose in the second half of the 20th century in Latin America and was used to refer to armed groups engaged in extrajudicial killings and torture for political purposes.

Politicians, journalists and human rights activists believe that Zakharanka, Hanchar, Krasouski and Zavadzki were abducted the so-called “death squadrons”, which previously, in the 90s, killed representatives of the criminal world of Belarus. According to the preliminary conclusion of human rights activists, the main suspects in the case of the abductions and murders of Zakharanka, Hanchar, Krasouski and Zavadzki are Aliaksandr Lukashenka, Viktar Sheiman (then head of the Security Council), Yury Sivakov and Uladzimir Navumau (at different times - the ministers of the interior), Dzmitry Paulichenka ( then commander of the military unit #3214) and Mikalai Vasilchanka (then - head of the President’s Security Service). The findings of Belarusian human rights activists were confirmed in 2004 in a special report of the deputy of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, Christos Pourgourides, who conducted his own investigation.

Among the main evidence that human rights activists base their version on is the report of the head of the Criminal Police of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, General Mikalai Lapatsik, and the testimony of Head of the pre-trial detention center Aleh Alkayeu. The report of Lapatsik addressed to the Minister of Internal Affairs Uladzimir Navumau, dated November 21, 2000 states that Sheiman instructed Paulichenka to physically destroy Yury Zakharanka.

The informational support for the operation was provided by the Presidential Security Service. The abduction and murder was carried out by special forces soldiers led by Paulichenka. Hanchar and Krasouski were killed according to a similar scheme. They were buried supposedly at a special stage in the Northern Cemetery of Minsk. In turn, Aleh Alkayeu stated that, at the request of Interior Minister Yury Sivakou, he provided a “shooting” gun on the eve of the disappearance of Zakharanka, Hanchar and Krasouski.

LEFT - DZMITRY PAULICHENKA. EXPERTS BELIEVE HE WAS BEEN THE HEAD OR ONE OF THE HEADS OF THE DEATH SQADRON. PHOTO - SB.BY

First, the operational services of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the KGB, coordinated by the Prosecutor General’s Office during the investigation, closed in on the same people - Sheiman, Paulichenka, Sivakou, and others. Paulichenka was detained, taken to the KGB pre-trial detention center and questioned. However, Lukashenka intervened in the investigation and, as human rights activists note, ordered to release Paulichenka in violation of all procedural rules. Lukashenka fired Prosecutor General Aleh Bazhelka and KGB Chairman Uladzimir Matskevich. Lapatsik, Alkayeu and other people involved in the investigation lost their posts. At the same time, the main suspects received new positions: Sheiman was appointed Prosecutor General, Sivakou - Deputy Head of the Lukashenka Administration.

Aliaksandr Lukashenka has repeatedly publicly admitted that extrajudicial killings of criminal authorities took place in Belarus on his orders. The last time he spoke about this on April 24, 2018 during a message to the Belarusian people and the National Assembly. “Are you crazy? Or should I take tough measures, as in the first years of my presidential life, when people were killed on the Moscow-Berlin highway: when I sent a handful of reliable people with machine guns who shot half of them and put things in order for a month,” the Belarusian ruler said. However, Aliaksandr Lukashenka always denied having anything to do with the abduction of Zakharanka, Hanchar, Krasouski, Zavadzki. He emphasized that they were not his opponents, and indeed in Belarus a lot of people annually disappear, so you don’t need to pay so much attention to these cases.

The terms of the investigation into the cases of the missing have been repeatedly extended; they still remain unsolved. In January 2019, the Investigatory Committee suspended the investigation into the disappearance of Zakharanka “in connection with the failure to identify the person to be involved as an accused.” Sheiman, Sivakou, Navumau and Paulichenka remain under the EU sanctions over the suspicion of involvement in the activities of the “death squadrons”.

A real investigation into these high-profile disappearances can only be resumed if the existing government changes. Representatives of the opposition, relatives of the missing people and the international community believe that Hanchar and Krasouski were kidnapped for political reasons, and suspect the top officials of the country of involvement in this crime.

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