Criminal case launched against former presidential wannabe Valery Tsapkala


Valery Tsapkala, an emigre politician and might-have-been presidential candidate, is facing a criminal charge for allegedly calling for ‘actions that harm national security’.

According to the Belarusian Investigative Committee, the reason for the prosecution was Tsapkala’s statement about the recent shootout in Minsk. In the course of Tuesday’s KGB raid, two persons were killed.

On the back of the grave incident, there have been many calls for using violence against security forces on the Internet, the committee notes.

“On September 29, Tsapkala posted a video on the web, in which he defined the murder of a KGB officer as ‘an example of how to fight for all residents of the Republic of Belarus’, he publicly called for an armed seizure of state power, forcible change of the constitutional order and other actions aimed at harming the national security,” the statement reads.

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In view of this, the Main Directorate for Investigation of Organised Crime and Corruption of the Investigative Committee opened a criminal case under Part 3 of Art. 361 of the Criminal Code (‘calls for actions aimed at harming the national security of the Republic of Belarus’) against Valery Tsapkala.

In the full swing of the 2020 election campaign, the Belarusian Interior Ministry launched a probe into ‘illegal activities’ in which Valery Tsapkala, a founder of the Belarusian Hi Tech park, presidential wannabe and former diplomat, was allegedly involved. On June 30 , the Central Election Commission announced that Tsapkala had not collected the necessary number of signatures to become a presidential candidate. The commission approved only 75,000 out of 160,000 signatures and said that Tsapkala would no longer take part in the presidential race. In turn, Tsapkala wrote on his Twitter that he had no intention to give up and would fight for each signature.

In July 2020, the man took his two sons and left Belarus for Moscow. According to the family, ‘credible sources’ provided them with information that the authorities were going to use a far-fetched pretext and detain Valery. Moreover, they were allegedly about to deprive the couple of parental rights. His wife Veranika Tsapkala, a member of the united headquarters during the election campaign of Svyatlana Tsikhanouskaya, went to Moscow ‘for security reasons’ on the election day, August 9.

At the moment, the Tsapkalas are staying in Latvia.

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