In September 2023, the Rorschach District Court acquitted the defendant at first instance on the grounds of contradictory statements and lack of evidence.
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The Cantonal Court of St. Gallen in northeastern Switzerland has sentenced a Belarusian man to a 24-month suspended prison term for enforced disappearance. He is alleged to have been involved in the murder of politicians in 1999 while serving in a special unit of the regime of President Alexander Lukashenko.
The court quashed the acquittal handed down by the lower court in one case. It based its decision on statements made by the man during the preliminary investigation, in which he had described his involvement in the enforced disappearance of three people in a credible and detailed manner.
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However, the defendant was acquitted on two counts. In the first case, the court did so because the accused, who was 20 years old at the time, was unaware that the abductee would later be killed. In the second case, the court ruled that the private prosecutors lacked standing. Relatives of the politicians who disappeared had lodged an appeal against the first instance decision as private prosecutors.
The trial centred on an offence based on a United Nations convention that allows for the prosecution of acts committed abroad.
The defendant can appeal the decision.
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Translated from German, reviewed by an English Department journalist.
