A former colonel of Belarusian secret service is convinced that the April bomb explosion in Minsk metro station resembled an explosion that took place during celebration of Belarusian independence in 2008, and was organized by the secret service.
Baradach escaped Belarus fearing for his life and was granted a political asylum in Germany. Before he left Belarus he dealt with an investigation into disappeared former minister of interior, Yuri Zakharenka.
In 2008, after the explosion took place in Minsk, Lukashenka dismissed his head of the presidential Security Council, Viktar Shejman. According to Baradach it was a plot by the Belarusian president, who feared he might be removed from power by the top party officials, such as Shejman who had close ties to Kremlin and a hundred loyal subordinates. Lukashenka orchestrated the bomb explosion while Shejman was sent on an official trip and accused him of not fulfilling his duties.
After Shejman was removed from his post, Lukashenka’s son Viktar was put in command of the entire secret service. Today, Viktar is the second (after Lukashenka) most powerful person in the country.
Baradach stressed that Kanavawov and Kavaliow, who are accused of orchestrating the bomb attack are just scape goats, and the real perpetrators of the explosion are secret services under Viktar Lukashenka’s command. Paval Usaw, Belarusian political scientists agrees with Baradach. Usaw thinks that the trial of the two defendants reminds of 1930s during the Soviet era, when defendants always plead guilty and were convicted based on their own testimonies.
President Lukashenka in a TV interview on Saturday stressed that the perpetrators should face the most severe punishment. The prosecutor demanded death penalty (in Belarus those convicted are executed by a shot in the back of their head). Zmitser Kanavawov and Uladzislav Kavaliow are charged with terrorism and orchestrating a terrorist attacks during the celebration of the independence day in 2008 and in Minsk metro in April 2011, which left 15 people dead. In his final speech, one of the defendants said that his testimony which is the basis for the charged was extorted.
Belsat
