oh people of the islamic revolution are all. opens up making its initial sortation capitalism strikes and states of emergency sinks into chaos. trying to take the 2nd risks chance the people threatens the old order. 1979. that created today's world starts december 23rd 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 a little bit of a pickle we were acting on orders. we were given a verbal order that was given any of us had refused we would have been replaced and the next man would have done it to the the full glare so. we are talking about a conspiracy. why don't you like about human rights and bill roache here you have the right just there over the sheets. with the thought with them back when europe was admitted to hospital 10 months ago he. only walk in paying. his right hip had been smashed to pieces in

a car accident in belarus ury fled to a german 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 move it to the shores why i left my family in 2008 hour after the attempt on my life you know when i realized that my wife and daughter were sacred to me and so i decided to get divorced but. since then i have lived a life also it's a. buring 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. because the former i had information that they were either arrest me or imprisonment is. a label i didn't want to sit in a jail or make a confession. or be accused of something i hadn't done in the us it's in the book. store doing 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 walked the last few meters to his home

. and. the reconstruction of the crime is based on the account of the key witness eureka rap 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 suburbs 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 protesters were on the streets trying to prevent their country from becoming a dictatorship. with 2 controversial referenda beller reuss president lukashenko made a bid to gain total power and exclude parliament the people's representatives in

parliament went on a hunger strike in vain. since then look at shankar 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 zakhar ranko had tried to bring the country more and more towards the west on a visit to bone he signed an agreement on police cooperation with germany. well it was not going to yes there was just as about. 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. all around me here very. dear

friends. 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 eureka skee was 18 years old during his military service he joined a special unit and was soon integrated into a newly founded intervention force called saba 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 the. people are served in the fighting units of the ministry of internal advance get 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. says here in this summary i made a note of who was involved in the elimination of zachary and co on may the 7th and who was involved in eliminating gunshot on september the 16th. series a list of all the people who knew about it and who were involved this is. serious you know the. all the orders were given verbal with the media just all of them

there is no written evidence because of the over here recordings no minutes reports or anything like that with. all of. the corn sure it was probably on behalf of president lucas and co or you live by i don't know i can't say. lin's more than most words. 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 independence street 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 all a vulture it has suffered a great deal of persecution and suppression by the state the civil rights activist and lawyer represents the secular and her family in minsk there were here we are in germany soccer and those wives this is his eldest daughter that's me in the middle 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. too. and members of the opposition to the president the witness tells us that both of them were to be eliminated. what was this is the military base invaded. by. this this is where we killed them was a sort of the dance of the road after about 200 meters it goes about 20 meters into the forest this is really going to. this is where we kill concha and christophe

schemes to blow up the group and the the borderland here about 50 meters away as grave was down this road was this what bullets will dress them and burned their clothing here i need as shoes were tossed into the grave and buried with. is a corporal. after time victor gone child was the head of the central election commission he stood up against president look who wanted more power gone child was trying to stop him brute force was deployed against gone child and his staff during the referendum reformulated myself of course not happy started k.g.b. agents and special units blocked their offices. preventing concho from entering which you put you on their property the witness from the death squad tells us that there was a reward of a $1000.00 for murdering gunshot. you can walk around with

a lot of really niggers lauriston after running and they were given a reason for getting rid of gunshot. don't store when your bill we were told later on charge had evidence showing that lucas shank had come to power illegitimately and that the vote in 1996 was rigged. but in the storm gone child was in possession of this evidence. he. told us afterwards that we had eliminated him because of this compromising material that we were. zachary enco and cross off ski with the most prominent victims of the location 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 years ago there is remorse there is a sense of guilt if these people were still alive things would be different in belarus today was. worth a lot of things would be better today and most importantly there would be no fear we would have a say in things of saccharine corner gone char was still alive. all of vote shows us a figure of an angel. it's a present from elena the eldest daughter of the minister of the interior who disappeared visited her in germany. she said this angeles for you elena zucker recommended herself it's

a guardian angel. on the evening of may 7th 1999 yuri secor ranko had nobody to help 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 balad.

in northern germany this is where. family lives in exile his widow 2 daughters and grandchildren who never saw they grandfather. 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. but now most of the party 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 is still 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 valorous president and the state visit them actually the so that's. today is the 1st time that eleanor 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. it's a fact that yes 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 in your need. are the facts correct they could be initial answers to this question in strasbourg christiane and i got to listen to the witness statement great

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 all the more closely in the case of bella reuss the ability we have today to run and the. investigation belarus seems very small. that's a problem well the. we are concerned never close the file would close the day when a program investigation is conducted and there are findings as to up hold up until these does appear people it's impossible for these abductions and murders to have taken place without the concept to put it mildly

of very very high officials and when i say very high your fish else my mind goes to the president. who was north of la he knew about it maybe he didn't know but i can't be sure but i think he did not know. accusations that barely reach alexander lukashenko for many years the president of bella russo 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 1st visit to an e.u. country in many years. at the press conference the question of the opposition politicians who disappeared was rawest. did not answer but he admitted that he rules his country in an

authoritarian manna. puts it i also want the citizens of our country to be absolutely sovereign and independent we know that we are only a self-sufficient independent and our citizens are only as free as our situation allows us and that situation is very complicated this muscle actually. up to measuring zakhar and the killers drug to minsk.

gorecki says he had no choice he had to take part in the assassination. or the doing was because it was new girl in the limelight of question that were deep down inside you but when a young man receives an order either your part of the system or you are not. adorable so i knew i had to follow this through the use of the bruise of the gun there i had my old i would have ended up in the same hole in the ground. was the corporal sucker's i heard him call. for the council of europe investigate his 2nd raincoats murder was clearly the work of a death squad. 'd a death swore. by publishing a book. for peace or for just. 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 death's court. 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 it an appearance that these wear will teach alex ignitions. and that's a kind of message up a nonce to say you know 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 motorway and heads for a cemetery. the group commander colonel disappears with the corpse in the direction

of the crime atory him 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. news 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. a 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. here.

by 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 know what i mean you know everything else depends on you and the judicial system in belarus a lot of this is. words of remorse which need to be processed. on the hook to tell ken i accepted. exactly how big it had almost gone. it wasn't 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. being stored at the going out. of home surprise that a witness has turned up who was willing to talk about it openly. talk 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 it's just it's not about him it's about the whole system behind him like you just said yes we cannot be blamed personally. and that 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 belarus 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 deloris would 1st have to face up to its past otherwise it will remain an outsider in europe. you can't consider a society as a wealthy and i would say a consolidated society without the. capacity to 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 try i think they're all democracies or europe. we do not. accept. without solving the important issue of that is appearances and many other problems as one of the axis is not only these problems.

these i can describe it as an important. the tip of the iceberg we should everybody sees but they be in the water they are easy to be. civil rights and liberties are violated in belarus it's the only country in europe with the death penalty is still in forced 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. i believe that the disappearance of the politicians and della reese 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 of. europe has not forgotten 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 victual in the growth of remembrance. when i get a letter out in. writing we are wounded by our past in this war and will never heal

. it will always open up again in our memories in our dreams. not being able to say goodbye to someone not being able to bury him is the worst punishment there is. the past is a lifelong burden. it is only when the murders have been resolved that this burden may become lifetime for those left behind as well as for bellerose.

they've been taught the ideology of terrorism. trained to fight. here to kill. hundreds of european children have become innocent victims ohio. they were taken to syria by their own. will become of the. children of job. in 15 minutes on g.w. . what secrets lie behind the small. discover new adventures in 360 degree.

and explore fascinating world heritage sites. g.w. world heritage 316 get the map now. this is the w. news live from berlin pakistan's former military ruler perez massara is sentenced to death. a court is long the law has handed down that decision following a sharp spears long trial on treason charge also on the show. the maltese government interfere in the investigation of a top journalists murder lawmakers are taking up that question as well as possible

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