Officials react to account of SOBR killings

On Monday, DW reported the detailed account of Yuri Garavski, who says he participated in the killings of three opposition figures in Belarus two decades ago. In 1999, former Interior Minister Yuri Zakharenko, former election commission head Viktor Gonchar and the businessman Anatoly Krassovsky disappeared without a trace. Their fates have remained unclear.

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Garavski told DW that Lieutenant Colonel Dmitri Pavlichenko, the founder of the paramilitary Special Rapid Response Unit (SOBR), planned and carried out the kidnapping of the missing men and personally executed them.

According to Garavski's account, plainclothes SOBR agents kidnapped Zakharenko in Minsk in May 1999 and took him to a military training area, where he was shot by Pavlichenko, and his body was buried in a cemetery in the capital. In September of that year, he said, the SOBR unit — again in civilian clothes — kidnapped Gonchar and Krassovsky, took them to the Begoml military base, executed them in the forest and buried them in graves that had been dug in advance.

Within hours of the story's publication, Pavlichenko told Belarusian media that the account was "nonsense." Although he acknowledged that Garavski had served in the army's 3214 unit, from which men were recruited for SOBR in 1999, Pavlichenko says Garavski was never part of SOBR. He added that Garavski was in jail at the time of the disappearances for other crimes. Gaarvaski vehemently denied Pavlichenko's claims.

'Sense of relief'

In light of the report, Anatoly Lebedko, a close political associate and personal friend of Viktor Gonchar's, has turned to authorities in Minsk with an official plea. "Today I wrote two letters to the Belarus investigation committee and the attorney general's office, suggesting they make documents in these 20-year-old cases public so that they can be fully investigated," he told DW. Lebedko said he had acted out of a sense of responsibility to the families of Gonchar and Zakharenko.

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The attorney general's office of Belarus has stated that the investigations into the disappearances remain open. Spokesperson Dmitri Brilev told Radio Svaboda, the Belarusian service of the US government-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, that the attorney general's office would take DW's article into consideration.

Garavski told DW that he would cooperate with investigators and be willing to testify under oath. He said he received a number of emails from friends after his account was published and that it had given him a "great sense of relief" to tell his story. Garavski expressed optimism "that the balance of power in Belarus will change."

Bundestag wants answers

German politicians have also called for a full investigation. Jürgen Hardt, the foreign policy spokesman for parliamentary caucus of the Christian Democrats and Christian Social Union, told DW that it would be important to have all the facts about a "very dark chapter in Belarus history." Hardt said the European Union's pressure in recent years had led to "positive developments" and better rights protections in Belarus.

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Hardt said the European Union would continue to extend its hand "if Belarus is prepared to confront its history and the repressive nature of state-sanctioned violence, as well as continue to make strides toward democracy." 

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The Bundestag's German-Russian parliamentary group is the legislature's link to Minsk. "We welcome a constructive explanation of these crimes," Oliver Kaczmarek, the deputy chairman of the parliamentary group and a Social Democrat, told DW. Kaczmarek said his party "never ceases to emphasize the importance of human rights in all meetings with Belarusian authorities." He said it would be hasty to make judgments before investigations are completed according to international legal standards.

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