Opposition politician: Łukašenka’s reprisals rooted in 1999 political kidnappings

May 7, Pozirk. High-profile unsolved political kidnappings dating back to 1999 are links in the same chain of “pragmatic, cynical actions by the regime to purge the political landscape of strong players,” exiled politician Anatol Labiedźka has told Pozirk.

Crimes without punishment give rise to new crimes, he said on May 7, marking 25 years since the disappearance of former Interior Minister Juryj Zacharanka in downtown Minsk.

“It was a clear symptom of a morbid thirst for power, which the ruler [Alaksandar Łukašenka] needed at any cost,” he added, also noting the unexplained death of opposition politician Hienadź Karpienka in April 1999 and the disappearance of Viktar Hančar, ex-chairman of central election commission, and businessman Anatol Krasoŭski a few months later. 

In 1994, Zacharanka supported Łukašenka’s first presidential campaign and served as interior minister of Belarus from July 1994 to October 1995 before joining the opposition.

Investigators said that he was kidnapped with “the use of violence by unidentified persons and taken away in a car in an unknown direction.” A criminal case was opened into premeditated murder but has not been solved.

In 2001, Christos Pourgourides, rapporteur of the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights, unveiled the findings of his investigation in a report titled “Disappeared Persons in Belarus.”

He concluded that “steps were taken at the highest level of the state to actively cover up the true background of the disappearances,” noting that he had been provided with evidence “to suspect that senior officials of the state may themselves be involved in these disappearances.”

Former security officer Uładzimir Baradač said that Zacharanka was murdered after being captured by Łukašenka’s ‘death squads’. The former interior minister was reportedly tortured, beaten and shot to death.

Łukašenka, who dismissed the Committee for State Security (KGB) chief and the prosecutor general in 2020 and put the investigation on hold, claimed that Zacharanka disappeared after an alleged failure to repay some debt in Ukraine. He also claimed his opponent was photographed in Germany five years after the disappearance but did not present any evidence.

Also read: Haraŭski’s acquittal does not question Łukašenka regime’s crimes – rights groups