Alleged Lukashenko henchman to appear before the St Gallen Cantonal Court
Keystone-SDA
A man alleged to be a member of a Belarusian special forces unit is due to appear before the cantonal court in St Gallen on Tuesday. The 48-year-old Belarusian is alleged to have been involved in three murders on behalf of Alexander Lukashenko’s regime.
The Belarusian man had already appeared before Rorschach District Court in the autumn of 2023. The trial attracted international attention and was covered on site by around 30 journalists from Switzerland and abroad, as well as several human rights organisations.
In his asylum application in 2019, the defendant stated that, acting on behalf of the regime of President Lukashenko, he had been involved in the murders of three opposition politicians in 1999 – including the former Minister of the Interior, Yuri Zakharenko. He had also described the crimes in detail in various media outlets.
A first for the Swiss justice system
The complaint was filed by two daughters of opposition politicians who disappeared at the time, as well as Trial International, a non-governmental organisation (NGO) based in Geneva.
Legally, the case centres on the offence of enforced disappearance, which has been enshrined in the Swiss Criminal Code since 2017. The relevant section of the law is based on a UN convention. Under this, a person can be prosecuted in this country even if the offence was committed abroad. This is the first prosecution of its kind in Switzerland.
Acquittal at first instance
The prosecution had sought a three-year prison sentence for the accused before the district court, one year of which was to be suspended. However, the court of first instance acquitted the man in full. The presiding judge explained that certain accounts were simply absurd. The facts of the case had not been proven. The defendant had repeatedly contradicted himself, both during the asylum proceedings and during questioning by the public prosecutor’s office and in court.
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It was possible, the judge said, that the defendant had sought to influence his asylum decision favourably with his dramatic accounts. It had, however, been proven that the defendant had been sentenced to several years’ imprisonment in Belarus in the 2000s for bribery. The man was not a suitable key witness against the regime in Belarus.
The prosecution, however, considered that the accused was a proven member of a special unit responsible for making opposition figures “disappear”. The man had provided details of the crimes that only insiders could know.
The tall defendant, who has been physically impaired since an accident, did in fact admit in court that he had helped carry out orders to abduct and shoot people at the time, but that he had not committed any murders himself. He apologised to the victims’ bereaved families.
Public prosecutor did not appeal
This case marked the first time ever that a possible crime commissioned by the authoritarian regime of Alexander Lukashenko in Belarus had been discussed in court. Following the acquittal at the time, the lawyer representing the two bereaved families expressed his disappointment to the Keystone-SDA news agency. He said the court had failed to recognise the significance of this case.
The lawyers lodged an appeal and are seeking a conviction for multiple enforced disappearances before the St Gallen cantonal court. The public prosecutor’s office did not appeal against the first-instance verdict, a spokesperson explained to Keystone-SDA.
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Translated from German, reviewed by an English Department journalist.
