dresses the people of east germany. the movies turns. clamors for german unity journalist peter allen borg was at the scene. 30 years later he looks back on the. interesting. starts december 19th d.w. . minsk the capital of valorous a vigil is being held to remember politicians who disappeared from here without a trace 20 years ago. a key witness has come forward he tells us that as a soldier of a special unit he was involved in the abduction and murder of the opposition politicians with the hope of a recall we were acting on orders. we were given a verbal want to hope it was given any of us had refused we would have been

replaced and the next man would have done it to the us the but. we are talking about a conspiracy. why don't you like about human rights i'm going to rosalie here you have the right just there in the streets and. with that all good and dark when europe was admitted to hospital 10 months ago he could only walk in paying it. his right hip had been smashed to pieces in a car accident in bella ruse ury fled to a gym. and speaking region in the alps which shall remain unnamed his application

for asylum is still pending then 41 years old yuri received a hip replacement at a hospital in his host country. he has been scarred for life not only by the accident which he thinks was an attempt on his life but also by an event that turned him into a criminal and destroyed his family. and moved to the shores like that my family in 2008 hours after the attempt on my life yep when will i realize that my wife and daughter was sacred to me and so i decided to get divorced but the more yet i was rules since then i have lived all sorts of them. during no longer felt safe in his home country because he wanted to speak out get the burden off his chest as he explains he alleges that his former comrades from the mint security unit were pursuing him. the plan for months i had

information that they would either arrest me or imprisonment is. the live i didn't want to sit in jail or make a confession is ludicrous ill be accused of something i hadn't done in the us a kid the book. store being on them. eerie was involved in a crime that has shaken people in eastern europe to this day the old fire station in the heart of minsk this is where the former minister of the interior yuri's eco ranko parked his car on the evening of may 7th 1909. zachary and co was a key figure of the opposition as always he was the last few meters to his home. the reconstruction of the crime is based on the account of the key witness yuri

grab scheme 2 men follow saccharine coke so he is unable to escape. 2 more men block his path ahead they are soldiers dressed in plain clothes they belong to the somme a special unit. one of the men says they are policeman and if he needs to go with them. 20 years ago the political situation in minsk was dramatic the former minister of the interior decorating co had changed sides and was now the head of the opposition tens of thousands of protestors were on the streets trying to prevent their country from becoming a dictatorship. with 2 controversial referenda bella ruse president made a bid to gain total power and exclude parliament the people's representatives in parliament went on a hunger strike in vain. the.

since then look how has been ruling almost singlehandedly deloris is seen as the last dictatorship in europe a police state in its purest form. previously as minister of the interior zakk a rank 0 had tried to bring the country more and more towards the west on a visit to bonn he signed an agreement on police cooperation with germany. it was not going to. this move led to a clash with the president whose rule became increasingly authoritarian the opposition rallied and military officers joined forces with them with the aim of ousting look at. all the only. dear friends sure. you black ravens are circling above our land.

that's why the national congress came together yesterday to protect the constitution against the dictatorship. back then our witness yuriko robiskie was 18 years old during his military service he joined a special unit and was soon integrated into a newly founded intervention force called sauber where he spent 5 years finally receiving a promotion. he keeps copies of important documents in the refugee home where he's staying and tells us that the originals are in a safe place and. this is my membership card for the special units veterans association. people have served in the fighting units of the ministry of internal advance guard one of these i was deputy commander in the 1st group this is the card you get if you were in the sober. bella ruse has several special units made up of hardened soldiers who are loyal to their

president here they show what they're capable of in the men's football stadium images from 20 years ago. saw his mission was to tackle smugglers and the mafia but our witness says that wasn't their sole task sauber was also deployed to forcibly eliminate the opposition. this is. in this summary i made a note of who was involved in the elimination of saccharin co on may the 7th and who was involved in eliminating concha on september 16th. series a list of all the people who knew about it and who were involved this is. serious serious loser who all the orders were given verbal with the meter just all of them there is no written evidence because of the over here recordings no minutes reports

or anything like that of. all of. the corn sure it was probably on behalf of president lucas franco aka lib i don't know i can't say. lin's not anymore. zachary and co does not put up a fight. in the car he tells his kidnappers please do it painlessly the car leaves minsk heading north. bellerose 1st became an independent state after the collapse of the soviet union since 991 minsk has been the capital of a nation with around 10000000 citizens. a

statue of lenin leader of the revolution and founder of the soviet union stands in front of the seat of government even today a very soviet style is much in evidence a corner building on independent straight houses the ministry of internal affairs once the work place of year is occurring next door the headquarters of the intelligence service the k.g.b. back then as today a field center of power or lead vulture it has suffered a great deal of persecution and suppression by the state the civil rights activist and lawyer represents the secular anchor family in minsk but there were more here we are in germany at the home of soccer and those wives this is his eldest daughter that's me in the middle and the writers are correct his wife they live in germany as political refugees. there is an atmosphere of fear in our country if you express your opinions and you

can end up in jail or be forced into corrective therapy that soviet system still exists in our country today. the 2nd case in september 1909. and businessmen. were kidnapped in front of sauna number 3 in minsk to opponents of the regime and members of the opposition plotting to oust the president the witness tells us that both of them were to be eliminated. and this is the military base invader. this is. about 200 meters it goes about 20 meters into the forests. this is where we can. hear about 50 meters away grave was done. was this would spoil where this well

dressed women burned their clothing here only their shoes were tossed into the grave and buried with them. who is a corporal. half the time victor gone childless the head of the central election commission he stood up against president who wanted more power gone child was trying to stop him brute force was deployed against concha and his staff during a referendum through far more of the flow of cash it started k.g.b. agents and special units blocked their offices. preventing gone china from entering . your mare after the witness from the death squad tells us that there was a reward of a $1000.00 for murdering gonchar family look you can opt out a lot of religious leaders to natter on and they were given a reason for getting rid of gone china. will be going sure are discussing the

bomb story with noble we were told later on charge had evidence showing that lukas shango had come to power illegitimately and that the vote in 1996 was rigged. to do the storm but the gun child was in possession of this evidence. you know and you will believe the they told us afterwards that we had eliminated him because of this compromising material that we were. going child zachary and cross off with the most prominent victims of the look of shame co regime but they were not the only ones. every year the vigil in minsk commemorates the victims.

with the disappearance of the 3 politicians the country's chances of democratic development also vanished useless gun larry's remorse there is a sense of guilt if these people were still alive things would be different in belarus today those. were a lot of things would be better today and most importantly there would be no one here we would have a say in things of soccer want gone char was still alive. only shows us a figure of an angel it's a present from elena the eldest daughter of the minister of the interior who disappeared only visited her in germany. she said this angel is for you elena zucker nccam editor self it's a guardian angel. on the evening of may 7th 1999 yuri 2nd rank i had nobody to help or protect him.

the death squad drove him to a military training ground around 20 minutes outside of minsk. the pistol that was used to assassinate him was a special model built for close range use the official weapon for executions in belarus.

munster in northern germany this is where your family lives in exile his widow 2 daughters and grandchildren who never saw their grandfather. elena is the eldest daughter she works as a saleswoman and is the only member of her family to publicly discuss their plight she and her family came to germany a year after her father disappeared and reluctantly applied for asylum. because of that for the usually when we arrived in germany we already had tickets for our return flight we came here to report in a democratic country on the situation in our home country. that was all we were planning to do just on us i'm not absolutely able but then we got a call that the k.g.b. had started criminal investigations accusing us of vilifying the honor and dignity of the president and the state because it's actually the. today

is the 1st time that elena 2nd ranko has heard about the witness and his statement regarding the details of her father's death. at 1st she is skeptical and struggles with her emotions so. it's a fact that just i hope the facts are true and they can be checked. of course it is difficult to hear about this and to see the burial sites. let alone to hear how it happened i think that. you need nerves of steel and yet we need. are the facts correct. they could be initial answers to this question in strasbourg christiane's program readers and andre got to listen to the witness statement. this is a defense lawyer from cyprus 15 years ago he investigated the disappearance of the

bellerose opposition politicians to the council of europe. is still following the cases today the council of europe scrutinizes human rights and over who closely in the case of belarus the ability we have today to run and that instigate investigation that iris seems very small or that's a problem. that we are concerned never wrote if i would close the day when a program was to gauge when he's conducted and there are findings as to up hold up and release does appear people it's impossible for these abductions and murders to have taken place without the concern to put it mildly of very very high your fish and when i say very high officials. my mind goes to the president.

who was north of la he knew about it maybe he didn't i can't be sure but i think he did not storms. accusations that barely reach alexander lukashenko for many years the president of bella recent was not welcome in the west that changed in nov 29th cheney. the austrian president received the dictator from minsk in vienna it was look at those photos visit to an e.u. country in many years. at the press conference the question of the opposition politicians who disappeared was raised. did not answer bot he admitted that he rules his country in an authoritarian manna. which.

i also want the citizens of our country to be absolutely sovereign and independent that we are only a self-sufficient and independent and our citizens are only as free as our situation allows us and that situation is very complicated this muscle actually. up to murdering secor encode the killers drug back to minsk. gorecki says he had no choice he had to take part in the assassination.

of the will during the move but there was no girl in the line might have question that deep down inside. but when a young man receives an order either your part of the system or you are not. yeah so i knew i had to follow this through the bruise of the gun if i had failed i would have ended up in the same hole in the ground. for the council of europe investigators 2nd raincoats murder was clearly the work of a death squad. 'd a death wish walk 'd. by publish a book. for peace or for justice. the officer allegedly responsible has already been named in an official document from minsk which was passed to investigators from the bellerose public prosecutor's office

at that school. house. on behalf of the state that's why they use the pistol from or that will use for the visual executions. just to give you done appearance that these wear will teach alex ignitions. and that's the kind of message does yours open and say this is not obvious sure but it is really us with this side so someone to put the pressure to put the terror on the orders. after the murder the assassins bring the body back to minsk. the car leaves the city mostly white and heads for a cemetery. the group commander colonel public disappears with the corpse in the direction of the. there is no trace of the body after that.

the witness statement severely incriminates dimitri pavlyuchenko a highly decorated officer in the belarus ministry of internal affairs did the man who deployed the sober special unit as a death squad also murdered the opposition politicians. we soldiers were just carrying out orders we only arrested the man when. we didn't pull the trigger we didn't carry out the liquidation order or did that he was the one who pulled the trigger our witness is not obliged to incriminate himself therefore some doubts still remain as to what actually happened the families of those left behind continue to demand justice for the events of 20 years ago gorecki has a message for them but most of all for the relatives of the dead. but. i express my deepest condolences i was involved in these matters and i offer my

apologies. i can show you where they are buried on the matter you heard on the air and i got everything else depends on you and the judicial system in belarus a lot of this is the. words of remorse which need to be processed. on the hook to kill ken i accepted. exactly how big it. he was and what i thought they had chosen people with no family or relatives in belo roost to carry out the assassinations so that they could also be liquidated afterwards. assisting that of the getting out. of i'm surprised that a witness has turned up who was willing to talk about it openly. about it up close . eleanor zachary and co finds her response later directed at the

man who was an accessory to the murder of her father. at the new one. if you will it's just it's not about him it's about the whole system behind him and you just say this we cannot be blamed personally. i'm not but you know she died for the power yes people like him are dependent on the system and are forced to commit its gruesome crimes. even if i said this to him i can't say it to the thousands of others who served with him mr bush. the political system in bellerose systematically violates human rights the flags of 47 member states can be seen outside the council of europe building in strasbourg the bella ruth's flag is not among them in order to become a member bella reuss would 1st have to face up to its past otherwise it will remain an outsider in europe. you can't consider a society other wealthy and i would say have consolidated

society without the open area that the capacity they had the possibility to know what's happened we can't condemn that that but 1st we must know math clearly no one is responsible and in 4th disappearance is a way to i the truth i thing they all democracies or europe. we do not. accept. without solving the important issue of that is appearances and many other problems as well the texas is not only these problems. these i can describe it as any port on. the

tip of the iceberg we should everybody sees but. they've been the water there is have be. civil rights and liberties of violated in belarus it's the only country in europe with the death penalty is still in full list the media is firmly in the hands of the state there is hope for change mainly among young people and human rights activists who can still remember the events of 20 years ago when the opposition was brutally eliminated. therefore i believe that the disappearance of the politicians and deloris will be resolved it's no longer just a matter for the government history has taught us that. in latin america similar cases were investigated 30 years later and are still being investigated. and bella reuss is in europe and. europe has not forgotten bellerose all the opposition politicians who disappeared. human rights activists from amnesty international have

planted trees for them in the dutch city of and hovan. one see it as an hour's vigil in the grove of remembrances. when i get a letter writing in motion but all right we are wounded by our past in this war and will never heal that. it will always open up again in our memories in our dreams.

of not being able to say goodbye to someone not being able to bury him is the worst punishment. there is some. the past is a lifelong burden. it is only when the murders have been resolved that this burden may become lighter for those left behind as well as the better roofs.

off. the top to sligo with 6 consecutive one line down just a little. back in the race for the title with sticks no fire news. team in its double. is a master of the art of confrontation this is wrong of better from a comeback doesn't mean you're going to see very dark fly the undisputed champion of tough political talk show dog trying to try to get no crucified everybody on the side that thinks that you enter the conflict zone and join tim sebastian as he holds the power so to account this is a big failure whichever way you like to spin the conflict zone g w. this

is d.w.b. news live from berlin india shaken by violence over controversial new citizenship law protesters in delhi torch vehicles and clash with police they claim the new law is anti muslim and fear prime minister narendra modi is aiming for a hindu india also on the program disappearing dissenters did death squads in the former soviet republic of belarus silence political opposition and then p.w. news exclusive this man tells us he was one of the.