"We Know Who Carried Away Raman Bandarenka From the Square of Changes"

The ex-investigator told the details about the independent investigation of the crime of the Lukashists.

The BYPOL initiative has published its investigation into the death of Raman Bandarenka, beaten to a coma by unidentified men in civilian clothes. BYPOL unites Belarusian security officials, including investigators who quit their jobs. The investigation revealed new names of people who are probably involved in the Minsk resident's death last November.

On the evening of November 11, 31-year-old Raman Bandarenka went out into the courtyard of his house to ask people in civilian uniforms and masks why they were taking off the white-red-white ribbons hung in the courtyard. According to eyewitnesses, unidentified persons in civilian clothes and masks seized him and took him away in a police minibus. After some time, Raman was taken to the hospital in a coma, severely beaten, officially with cerebral edema and closed head injury. He died the next day.

In its investigation, the BYPOL initiative cites negotiations between the police and the ambulance, conversations between doctors and Bandarenka's relatives, as well as medical documents. Judging by these materials, Raman was brought to the police station in a very serious condition.

The investigation also reveals the names of possible persons involved in the death of the young man. These are the head of the Ice Hockey Federation of Belarus Dzmitry Baskau and kickboxer Dzmitry Shakuta, close to Aliaksandr Lukashenka, as well as Lukashenka's press secretary Natallia Eismant. Their possible participation became known earlier.

Among the new names: TV presenter Hanna Eismant, sister of Natallia Eismant's husband, coach and member of Lukashenka's hockey team Pavel Volchak and his wife, as well as five SOBR officers and several AMAP officers. A criminal case on the death of Raman Bandarenka has not yet been initiated.

The Current Time correspondent talked about the BYPOL investigation with Ihar Loban, a former investigator of the Investigative Committee of Belarus.

- How, according to your investigation, are these new people involved in the death of Raman Bandarenka?

- At the moment, we can absolutely and obviously assert that these people were present at the place of the investigated events. At the same time, I would like to note that everyone's role should be directly established by the investigation in the framework of the criminal case.

- That is, until it has been proven simply that they were present there?

- At least we know, we saw a video on the Internet in open sources of how Raman was carried away from the Square of Changes, we know who it was, that is, it was the SOBR officers who put him in their minibus. Again, we know further who brought Raman to the department of internal affairs. These were AMAP officers, whose information we have already said. At least, these people need to be asked questions about what they did and how they did it, what can be done most efficiently within the initiated criminal case framework.

Unfortunately, we do not have such an opportunity to talk with these people. If there was such an opportunity, we would have more specific answers to questions and conduct investigations in even more detail.

- It was proven there, documented, that he was sober. But why do you think the person who calls the ambulance for the first time, if I'm not mistaken, says that Raman is intoxicated?

- The thing is that there was such a situation when the AMAP officers brought Raman Bandarenka to this department of internal affairs and told the officers of the operational duty service that he was just a drunk person who was in strong alcoholic intoxication; after that, he was simply abandoned and left.

Therefore, the employee who made the first call to the ambulance followed a standard procedure and called the ambulance to examine the intoxicated citizen. That's why he said that Raman Bandarenka, this conversation was about him, is in a state of alcoholic intoxication.

Later, when the employees realized that it has nothing to do with alcoholic intoxication, that he was simply in a serious condition, they began to call again: there were two more calls to the ambulance, which already mentioned the need for an emergency arrival, that the person was losing consciousness and needed medical attention. And in one of these conversations, we hear a police officer who says: "There is no alcoholic intoxication, there is no smell of alcohol at all."

- Do you have an answer to a very simple question: who killed Raman?

- I repeat that only the investigation can reliably answer this question, and it is within the framework of the initiated criminal case because the toolkit of criminal prosecution in a criminal case allows you to answer a number of questions more accurately. It is possible to carry out the same investigative experiment only under the conditions of a criminal investigation, not within the pre-investigation check framework that the General Prosecutor's Office is currently carrying out.

- You know these people, your former colleagues, who actually know the causes of Raman's death. Do you expect some of them actually to start talking someday?

- Of course, they will start talking, but, again, after the initiation of a criminal case. You see, what is the problem: at the pre-investigation verification stage, the person who accepts explanations is not even warned about criminal liability for knowingly giving false testimony. While during the investigation of a criminal case, the person being interrogated in a witness's status is warned about such responsibility. Therefore, it will not be a secret for anyone that one can say complete nonsense within the pre-investigation check framework and not be held responsible for it.

- You are now talking more likely about the procedural side, and I'm asking more about the fact that the person on duty, for example, who was on duty that day, knows exactly all the details of what happened, will go out to the media or record a video message in social networks, and say: yes, I know, this and that happened... Is this possible?

- It's a difficult question in the current realities in Belarus because you need to have certain courage to do this, and reprisals from the state will inevitably follow it.