hallway in crisis. dr bell editor in chief you know as paul interviews the chairman of the chinese telecommunications giant leon cool off. you can huawei survive the toil caused by the trade war between china and the us. the interview today starts 1330 u.t.c. on. 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 were over the book recall 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 too the it was the biggest. we are talking about a conspiracy. why don't you like about human rights and bill of chile here you have the right just there over there she's. with the dog with him back when you was admitted to hospital 10 months ago he could . only wark in paying. his right hip had been smashed to pieces in

a car accident in bella ruse 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. moved to the shores like that my family in 2008 hours after the attempt on my life. i realized that my wife and daughter were sacred to me and so i decided to get divorced but the more you. sense them i have lived also it so 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. for months i had information that they were either arrest me or imprisonment is. the live i didn't want to sit in jail or make a confession. or be accused of something i hadn't done you know as a kid the book. 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 enco was a key figure of the opposition as always he walked the last few meters to his home

. the reconstruction of the crime is based on the account of the key witness scheme 2 men followed zachary enco so he is unable to escape. 2 more men block his path ahead they are soldiers dressed in plain clothes they belong to the sauber 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. 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 lukashenko made a bid to gain total power and exclude parliament. the people's representatives in

parliament went on a hunger strike in vain. that was the. 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. and previously as minister of the interior zakhar enco 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. with what was not going to yes there was no it is not as if it was. thank you 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 location co. all around me here very. dear friends.

lack ravens are circling above our land. all joy that's why the national congress came together yesterday to protect the constitution against the dictatorship. back then our witness your ego of ski 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. this is my membership card for the special units veterans association the. people who have served in the fighting units of the ministry of internal affairs get one of these i was deputy commander in the 1st group this is

the card you get if you are in the sober. bella ruse has several special from 20 years ago. stop as mission was to tackle smugglers and the mafia but our witness says that wasn't their sole task but was also deployed to forcibly eliminate the opposition. this is here in this summary i made a note of who was involved in the elimination of zachary enco on may the 7th and who was involved in eliminating concho on september 16th who fear is a list of all the people who knew about it and who were involved moses. says seriously knew the who all the orders were given verbal with the media just all but them there is no written evidence because of the over dia recordings no minutes reports or anything like that of. all of. the

corn sure it was probably on behalf of president lucas shanker or lib i don't know i can't say. lin's not anymore who is. zachary and co does not put up a fight. in the car he tells his kidnappers please do it painlessly the car lease minsk heading north. bellerose 1st became an independent state after the collapse of the soviet union since 1991 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 or like a 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 if 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 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. in september 1909. and businessmen. were kidnapped. and members of the opposition to the president the witness tells us that both of. what was this the this is the military base in vegas. 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. this is where we kill concha and christophe skis to. the border and here about 50 meters away a grave was down this field was this would spoil what if we underestimate burned

their clothing here only their shoes were tossed into the grave and buried with. is a. really after time victor gone child was 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 going char and his staff during the referendum be far too late for those of course not for peace started k.g.b. agents and special units blocked their offices. preventing gunshot from entering the washer 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 look you can all kind of blown up really niggas who are still not running and they were given a reason for getting rid of gunshot. in the

store with noble we were told later they were gone charge had evidence showing that luka 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. going child zachary enco and cross off ski with the most prominent victims of the looks schenker 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 this was good news there is remorse there is a sense of guilt if these people were still alive things would be different in belarus today. were 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 gonchar was still alive for all a 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 angel is for you ellen as committed 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 belarus.

in northern germany this is where your family lives in exile his widow 2 daughters and grandchildren who never saw the 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. and i was so happy 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 shock on us a lot of selling a book 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 bella rouge president and the state because it's actually the that. today

is the 1st time that. 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 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. that. was a little known to hear how it happened. that. you need nerves of steel in your need. are the facts correct they could be initial answers to this question in strasbourg crystals and i got to listen to the witness statement paul 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 the vince again investigation that iris seems very small or. that's a problem well the. we are concerned never close the file would close the day when a probate investigation is conducted and there are findings as to up hold up and police disappear people it's impossible for these abductions and murders to have taken place without the concept to put it mildly of very very high your fish. and when i say very high your fish else my mind goes to the president.

who was most of them are he knew about it maybe he didn't know but i can't be sure but i think he did 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 raised. did not answer but he admitted that he rules his country in an authoritarian mannah. puts

it i also want the citizens of our country to be absolutely sovereign and independent 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 murdering zecher and the killers drug but to means. 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 line might have questioned it down inside. but when a young man receives an order to your part of the system or you are not. adorable so i knew i had to follow this through the use of the blows of the gun if i have my old i would have ended up in the same hole in the ground is i correct. was the corporate sucker of the hood income for the council of europe investigators 2nd rank those murder was clearly the work of a death squad. 'd a death wish walk. by leverage or go. for peace or 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 that school.

has some appearance. on behalf of the state that's why they use the pistol from or that were used for the visual executions. just to give it an appearance that these where will to shall executions. and that's the kind of message up announced to say this is not obvious sure but it is really us with this 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 symmetry. the group commander colonel publishing co disappears with the corpse in the direction of the crematorium there is no trace of the body after that. the witness

statement severely incriminates dimitri pavlyuchenko a highly decorated officer in the bellerose 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 called 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 murders and i offer my

apologies and i can show you where they are buried on the matter you heard on your . 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 tell ken i accepted. exactly how big it oh yeah dawlish. he 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. thing started to get me out. and i'm surprised that a witness has turned up who was willing to talk about it openly. about it to a close. eleanor saccharin 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. i'm not but you knew she died of the power yes you people like him are dependent on the system and are forced to commit it's gruesome crimes. even if i said this to him i can't say it to the thousands of others who served with him mr aboard. 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 reuss 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 as

a wealthy and i would say a consolidated society without the 0 but that the capacity to the possibility to know what's happened we can't condemn that that but 1st we must know mass clearly no one is responsible and in fault disappearance is a way to i actually i think they all democracies of europe. we do not. accept. without solving the important issue of that is appearances and many other problems as world of excess is not only this problem. this i can describe it as an important. the

tip of the iceberg we should everybody sees but they've been the water there these would 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 is in europe and. 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 hour speech will in the growth of remembrance. when i get a letter. 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. because. 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 the bellerose.

india. how can a country's economy grow in harmony with its people and the environment when there are doers look at the bigger picture india a country that faces many challenges and people are striving to create a sustainable future clever projects from europe and india. 30 minutes on the w. .

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