The former chief executioner of Belarus said he was...
The former chief executioner of Belarus said he was ready to testify in an international court against President Alexander Lukashenko on charges of abusing human rights in the ex-Soviet country
The former chief executioner of Belarus said he was ready to testify in an international court against President Alexander Lukashenko on charges of abusing human rights in the ex-Soviet country. Oleg Alkayev alleged Lukashenko's secret service used his executioner's gun to eliminate opposition figures.
"Lukashenko should be tried just like (ex-Yugoslav leader Slobodan) Milosevic," he told Reuters. "I am ready to cooperate with an international tribunal as a witness." "It's about justice.
Who else can show the guilt of the president of a country? It is not possible inside Belarus."
The former colonel, who became chief executioner in 1996, was once the keeper of the country's most deadly gun, a 6PB-9 army pistol equipped with a silencer. Alkayev said officers on his team would use the weapon without warning to shoot condemned prisoners on death row. But he said he never pulled the trigger himself.
He left Belarus in 2001 after saying he was ordered to make his executioner's gun available several times for unlawful killings. Belarus has dismissed his claims as lies. Recently, Alkayev obtained his executioner's logbook which documents when the gun was used and who borrowed it.
He also says he has bullet shells that could provide forensic evidence if any bodies of missing opposition figures were found in Belarus. The log shows that in 1999, top Belarus Interior Ministry officials twice borrowed the gun.
Alkayev said several opposition figures disappeared on the days his gun was on loan. Alkayev says he is ready to show the logbook and his bullet shells at an international tribunal in the Netherlands - the likely home of a new International Criminal Court to try crimes against humanity - or anywhere else that would host a trial against Lukashenko.
"Lukashenko should be tried just like (ex-Yugoslav leader Slobodan) Milosevic," he told Reuters. "I am ready to cooperate with an international tribunal as a witness." "It's about justice.
Who else can show the guilt of the president of a country? It is not possible inside Belarus."
The former colonel, who became chief executioner in 1996, was once the keeper of the country's most deadly gun, a 6PB-9 army pistol equipped with a silencer. Alkayev said officers on his team would use the weapon without warning to shoot condemned prisoners on death row. But he said he never pulled the trigger himself.
He left Belarus in 2001 after saying he was ordered to make his executioner's gun available several times for unlawful killings. Belarus has dismissed his claims as lies. Recently, Alkayev obtained his executioner's logbook which documents when the gun was used and who borrowed it.
He also says he has bullet shells that could provide forensic evidence if any bodies of missing opposition figures were found in Belarus. The log shows that in 1999, top Belarus Interior Ministry officials twice borrowed the gun.
Alkayev said several opposition figures disappeared on the days his gun was on loan. Alkayev says he is ready to show the logbook and his bullet shells at an international tribunal in the Netherlands - the likely home of a new International Criminal Court to try crimes against humanity - or anywhere else that would host a trial against Lukashenko.
— SOURCES
- (Sources: Reuters, 22/04/2002)