Ex-Investigator: Video Showing Former Head Of Main Directorate For Combating Organized Crime Shooting At Teenager To Be Deleted

Or just won't be shown to anyone.

Pro-government telegram channels have confirmed that a shooting incident involving ex-head of the Main Directorate for Combating Organized Crime and Corruption Andrei Parshyn took place in the "Cascade" residential complex in Minsk. A teenager named Yauhen has a gunshot wound. The zerkalo.io website asked the former investigator to comment on whether Parshyn had the right to shoot and to keep weapons with him at all, if he was allegedly on leave at the time.

We have also spoken to one of the former Belarusian investigators. He also confirmed that if Andrei Parshyn was on holiday at the time of the incident at "Cascade", he most likely had no right to carry a gun.

- A person can have a drink and then go and shoot someone, so guns are to be handed in when going on leave. But perhaps internal decrees prescribe exceptions for top management, but such documents are usually closed, there is no access to them.

The former investigator believes that in this case Parshyn can be prosecuted for carrying a firearm illegally, but not for using it.

- You can't shoot a minor, but it's a relative parameter: a teenager may look older, may be given 18, or may look 16 at the age of 20, no one asks for a passport right away. I think that's how Parshyn will justify himself. In any case, even if he was caught (the pro-government telegraph channels admitted that it was the ex-head of the Main Directorate for Combating Organized Crime and Corruption who shot him. - Editor's note), they will try to blame the guy for everything - allegedly he was the attacker.

If Parshyn did not introduce himself and did not show his ID, and in general was on holiday, the actions against him cannot be classified as an attack on an officer of the MIA. It is also important whether there was a threat to his life.

- Parshyn will probably say that he introduced himself as a police officer, tried to stop unlawful actions and was attacked, so he fired. Even if he did not identify himself, any citizen can inflict non-fatal harm on an attacker in self-defence. But the need to use the weapon - whether there was a threat and how serious it was - must be taken into account. If there was no threat, the policeman had no right to shoot. If there were acts of hooliganism that he was trying to stop, first he had to try to block or neutralise the intruder with some force, shoot in the air. Weapons are used against the person at the last moment, - explained the interlocutor.

- In a state governed by the rule of law, the investigator has to prove that the attacker (the pro-government telegram channels are trying to portray the teenager as such. - Editor's note) was the bandit, not the victim. Here we need to look at the video from the cameras to see what was going on, evaluate the motions of the teenager and Parshyn. But I think that the video will be deleted or not shown and the situation will be analysed in the following way: Parshyn's words against the words of the teenager. Of course, they will believe the former: after 2020, the presumption of trust in police officers is a dogma.