it is the foundation. of an international art project. musicians compose their understanding of nature. to mark the 50th anniversary of the composer's birth i like sharing the program the brain has not you know he's got . beethoven world wide. history project starts june 4th d. 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 a robot that of a recall we were acting on orders. we were given

a verbal order for that was given any of us had refused we would have been replaced and the next man would have done it to the us the sort of the stuff. we are talking about a conspiracy. what don't you like about human rights and i will surely hear you have the right just there over there she said. but the thought of looking back when you 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 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. salutes it all to the shores like my family in 2008 hours after the attempt on my life yup when i realized 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 the. 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. as the former i had information that they were either arrest me or imprisonment is. the 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. of 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 walked the last few meters to his home . the reconstruction of the crime is based on the account of the key witness

you're a grad scheme 2 men follow saccharine code 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 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 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. since then look at 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 raincoat had tried to bring the country more and more towards the west on a visit to bourne he signed an agreement on police cooperation with germany. well it was my concern yes there was. this 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 know me here very. dear friends. 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 eurico rob 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 saw the way 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 advancing at 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 the. sawbones 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 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 with this. serious loser who all the orders were given verbal with the media all of them there is no

written evidence because of the over dia recordings no minutes reports or anything like that this was the. call of. the corn sure it was probably on behalf of president lucas shanker or you live by 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 leads 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 only 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 if there were more here we are in germany 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's an atmosphere of great 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 a victor gone child and businessman anatoly cross all ski were kidnapped in front of sauna number 3 in minsk they 2 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. this is the military base invader. this is this is where we killed. about 200 meters he goes about 20 meters into the forest. this is where we killed.

the lead here about 50 meters away a grave was down because this. was this would spoil. their clothing here only their shoes were tossed into the grave and buried with. them half the 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 gone shot and his staff during the referendum we've. got all of the forethought for peace not to k.g.b. agents and special units to 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. kind of i was blown up with an actor on an.

they were given a reason for getting rid of gone china. in the bubblegum sure i. was in the bomb store with noble we were told later on charge had evidence showing that lucas shankar had come to power illegitimately and that the vote in 1996 was rigged. the deal was to storm but a gun child was in possession of this evidence. you know when you will believe the they told us afterwards that we had eliminated him because of this compromising material that we will. saccharine co and cross off with the most prominent victims of the look of shanghai 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 yes risk 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 one here we would have a say in things of saccharine corner gonchar was still alive. all of vote shows us a figure of an angel. it's a present from the eldest daughter of the minister of the interior who disappeared only a visitor in germany. she said this angel is for you ellen as a committed or self it's a guardian angel. on the evening of may 7th 1909 your reason

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 bellary.

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 was hooked up to 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 use on us not subsiding 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 visit them actually the so that's. today is the 1st time that elena 2nd rank 0 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 at the church. was a little known to hear how it happened. that. you need nerves of steel. are the facts correct they could be initial answers to this question in strasbourg crystals 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 bella ruse 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 belarus the ability we have today to run the vinci investigation belarus seems very small. that's a problem while the. 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 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. he knew about it maybe he didn't know but i can 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 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 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 by 2 main school.

gorecki says he had no choice he had to take part in the assassination. or the will dealing with it there was no girl in the limelight of question that the ground inside there 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 blows of the gun the i had filed i would have ended up in the same hole in the ground as i correct. was awkward plus a quicker the hood income. for the council of europe investigators a 2nd rank owes murder was clearly the work of a death squad. 'd they walk. by publish a book. for peace or just. the officer allegedly responsible has already been named in 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 will use for the visual executions . just to give you done appearance that these were adults. and that's a kind of message to 0 zopa nonce to say you know this is not official but it is really us with this site 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 and heads for symmetry. the group commander. 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 as did the man who deployed to soap a special unit as a death squad to also murder 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. 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. yeah but in the

1st christmas 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 know what i'm doing there. everything else depends on you and the judicial system in belarus. this is similar to her and. words of remorse which need to be processed. on the hook to tell 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. think that of the. i'm surprised that a witness has turned up who was willing to talk about it openly. talk about it to

a close. elena 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 knew she died of the power yes people like him are dependent on the system and they're 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 recently mr wood. 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 as a wealthy and i would say a consolidated society without the arbiter that the capacity to the possibility to know what happened we can't condemn that that but 1st we must know us clearly no one is responsible and in 4th disappearance is a way to i the truth i think they all democracies or europe. will 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. tip of the iceberg we should everybody sees but they've been the water they are easy to be a spare. civil rights and liberties are 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. to the store for 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 goes. 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 is an hour's vigil in the growth of remembrance. when i get a letter most of that 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. of not being able to say goodbye to someone not being able to bury him is the worst punishment there is a national. 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 ruse.

impressive i'm surreal. to india nature has been taking a breather. the lockdown has shown how much more still needs to be done climate change is going to become very very hot beating up a woman who loves company for the environment and the people. he killed. 30 minutes on t.w. . rebuilding mosul. liberated from isis in july 2017 march is a series still lie in ruin. reconstruction has been slowed by corruption and various conflicts. many people just want to get on with their lives . others wish that i asked would come back. in

75 minutes on w. w's crime fighters are back again a little africa's most successful radio drama series continues in the all of us odes are available online. more so you can share and discuss on w. africa's facebook page and other social media platforms to crime fighters to me and now. this is g.w. news and these are our top stories u.s. president donald trump has warned he will crack down on violent protests following the death of george floyd an african-american man is being held up by a white police officer trump was speaking at the white house as police fired tear gas and rubber bullets to clear peaceful protests nearby.