anticipated. massive break are supposed to prevent flooding but they only deliver. how will we live in the future. 66 may. see levels starts to set on g.w. . minsk the capital of ballerinas 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 because we were acting on orders. we were given a verbal order for that was the will any of us had refused we would have been

replaced and the next man would have done it is all. the stuff. we are talking about a conspiracy. what don't you like about human rights and the road. here you have the right just there in the streets. but that all that and dark when you was admitted to hospital 10 months ago he could only walk 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. yes and you put it all to the shores and left my family in 2008 hours after the attempt on my life yup 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 a life also it so the. hearing 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 minute security unit were pursuing him. to do and for

months i had information that they were either arrest me or imprisonment is. the labor i didn't want to sit in jail or make a confession is ludicrous ill or be accused of something i hadn't done there was a kid the book woods and his us dogging on them. erie 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 nko 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 eureka scheme 2 men follow saccharin co so he is unable to escape.

2 more men block his path ahead they are soldiers dressed in plain clothes they belong to the sabah special unit. one of the men says they are policeman and that 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 protesters were on the streets trying to prevent their country from becoming a dictatorship. with 2 controversial referenda 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. but the.

since then look at 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 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. it was not going as of yet though as noted i'm just not as about rules. 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 look. all around me here very. dear friends sure. lack 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 your ego rad 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 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. stop as 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 concho on september 16th who series a list of all the people who knew about it and who were involved with this. who all the orders were given verbal with the meters just all of them there is no written evidence because of the over here recordings no minutes reports or anything

like that. all of. the corn sure it was probably on behalf of president lucas shanker or q lib i don't know i can't say. lin's not anymore is. 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 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 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 all 8 of all chipped has suffered a great deal of persecution and suppression by the state the civil rights activist and lawyer represents the zachary and her family in minsk they were here we are in germany at the home of soccer and those wife 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 you can

end up in jail or be forced into corrective therapy that soviet system still exists in our country today. and businessmen. and members of the opposition to the president the witness tells us. thought. that this is the military base in vegas. this this is where we killed them was this that the dance of the road after about 200 meters it goes about 20 meters into the forest this is really going to score this is where we killed concha and christophe skis to. the border and here about 50 meters away as grave was dug this field was this would spawn bullets we

underestimate burned their clothing here only their shoes were tossed into the grave and buried with them. 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 people are calling for those of course not happy started k.g.b. agents and special units to their offices. preventing the 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 cannot go alone o'brien you just lost a matter on it and they were given a reason for getting rid of gonchar. in the but

on store when your bill we were told later that gone charge had evidence showing that lucas shank a come to power elected to mclean and that the vote in 1996 was rigged. the storm gone child was in possession of this evidence. he. told us afterwards that we had eliminated him because of this compromising material. we were. gone child zachary enco 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 just as good memories 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 gonchar was still alive. only 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 elena zucker recommended or self it's a guardian angel. on the evening of may 7th 1999 you're exactly right i 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 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 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 is still on us and us absolutely 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. today

is the 1st time that eleanor zecher enco 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 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 paul great is a defense lawyer from cyprus 15 years ago he investigated the disappearance of the

bellerose opposition politicians for 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 in belarus seems very small. that's a problem well the as far as we are concerned never close the file would close the day when a probe an investigation is conducted and there are findings as to up hold cup and police disappear people it's impossible for these abductions and murders to have taken place without the consent to put it mildly of very very high officials and when i say very high officials. my mind goes to the president.

was more of the right he knew about it maybe he didn't i can't be sure but i think he did not look at the storm's. accusations that barely reach alexander lukashenko for many years the president of belarus was not welcome in the west that changed in nov 29th chain. the austrian president received the dictator from minsk in vienna it was looking visit to an e.u. country in many years. at the press conference the question of the opposition politicians who disappeared was rawest the did not answer bot 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 but 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 is not solution. to murdering zecher into the killers drug but to means. gorecki says he had no choice he had to take part in the assassination.

of the google during the move but there was no girl in the line might have question that the gown inside. but when a young man receives an order to your part of the system or you are not. yeah so i knew i had to follow this through the rules of the country if i had failed i would have ended up in the same hole in the ground. as the white 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 a lovely should 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.

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 where what he shall executions. and that's a kind of message. to say this is not of fisher 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 public 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 to stop a special unit as a death squad also murder the opposition politicians but. 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 doubt 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. they are. by express my deepest condolences. i was involved in these murders and i offer my

apologies. i can show you where they are buried on the matter you know what i mean . 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 kill ken i accepted. exactly how big it. he was and what i thought they had chosen people with no family or relatives in bella ruse to carry out the assassinations so that they could also be liquidated afterwards. thing i thought of that going out. i'm surprised that a witness has turned up who was willing to talk about it openly. talk about it to a 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 and you just said yes we cannot be blamed personally. i'm not but you know she died for the power yards people like him are dependent on this system and they're 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 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 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 ability and that the capacity and the 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 think they all democracies of europe. we do not. accept. without solving the important issue of that is appearances and many other problems as well the other axis is not only these problems. these i can describe it as any port on. the

tip of the iceberg we should everybody sees but db in the water there are these a b guy spent. 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 ruse 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 growth of remember and. when i get in that happening in. iran 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.

of 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 better or worse. all. the stuff are on high alert these days

there are programs that a dialogue on those of a 4 letter word to the current of viruses of the moment of possible the chimpanzee trust come down to the island i'm going about the situation has become difficult because of the code 1929 a most of the people. who go for a go. through to spawn still. ongoing crazy thing in full time. how to handle our new allies in times of the koran a pandemic d.w. reporter cuarto book you see just like you know it's real and she's looking for answers and actually with the help of jamie expect. to basically thank you this is not life as we know it shot. in this together our new web series of.

player . this is d w news a live from berlin and donald trump warns he will crack down on violent protests following the death of an african american man is being held by a white police officer the u.s. president says law and order must prevail this comes as an official autopsy photos the death of george floyd a homicide saying his heart stopped as a white police officer kneeled on his neck.