oddly troy was coming from part of. the russian injury attorney to death charge to maintain g.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 worry that up a bit because 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 strongest. we are talking about a conspiracy. why don't you like about human rights i'm going to rosalee here you have the right just there over there. but the thought of that and back when europe 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 reed. jhon 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 move to the shores why i left my family in 2008 hour after the attempt on my life yep when the 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 and so the. eerie 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 middle security unit were pursuing him. as the villain for

months i had information that they were either arrest me or imprisonment is. the label 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. store being 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 1999. 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 eureka rap 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 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. myself was the.

since then look at how has been ruling almost singlehandedly della reese 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 to say yes those who are those are those voters about those villagers 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 yuriko rav 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 are 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 us 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 gunshot on september the 16th who series a list of all the people who knew about it and who were involved moses. says 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 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. 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 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 involved chip 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 if there were more here we are in germany and zachary goes why 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 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 this is where we killed a. dance in the road after about 200 meters it goes about 20 meters into the forest. this is where we killed and. the land here about 50 meters away as grave was done 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 going child and his staff during the referendum 3 foreign policy goals of course got repeat started k.g.b. agents and special units blocked their offices. preventing gone 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 gone shot. if you can opt out of a lot of really gets lost in atlanta. and they were given a reason for getting rid of gone china. in the bubblegum sure all those cars in the

bomb store with noble we were told later on charge had evidence showing that lucas shank 0 had come to power illegitimately and that the vote in 1996 was rigged. but in the storm but gone child was in possession of this evidence. you know and you will believe that because they told us afterwards that we had eliminated him because of this compromising material that we want to keep. going china zachary and cross off ski with the most prominent victims of the location code 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 some good news there is remorse there is a sense of guilt if these people were still alive things would be different in belarus today. we're doing 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. only 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 angelus for you ellen has made it or sell it's a guardian angel. on the evening of may 7th 1909 your reason i had nobody to help oh 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 your family lives in exile his widow 2 daughters and grandchildren who never saw they grandfather. and as 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. that was hooked up to the holy land 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 you saw on us last absolutely yeah 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 belarus president and the state because it's actually the that's. today

is the 1st time that elena 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 that. was a little known to hear how it happened. you need nerves of steel. are the facts correct they could be initial answers to this question in strasbourg crystal and i got to listen to the witness statement. 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 belarus seems very small. that's a problem well the. that we are concerned never close the file would close the day when a problem investigation is conducted and that 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 your fish. and when i say very high your fish else my mind goes to the president.

who was he knew about it maybe he didn't know it but i can't be sure but i think he did not know the storm's long. harsh accusations that barely reach alexander lukashenko for many years the president of bella ruse was not welcome in the west that changed in nov 29th cheney. the austrian president received the dictator from minsk in vienna. it was local 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. which.

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 must largely. up to murdering zecher and the killers drug but to minsk. gorecki says he had no choice he had to take part in the assassination.

of the will doing the most but there was no girl in the line might have question that deep down inside. but when a young man receives an order for 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 had my old i would have ended up in the same hole in the ground. was the core the prosecution of the hood and. for the council of europe investigators 2nd rank those murder was clearly the work of a death squad. 'd a death wish walk. 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 you done appearance that these were all fish alex ignitions. and that's a kind of message. 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 symmetry. 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 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 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'm doing. everything else depends on you and the judicial system in belarus. this is the. words of remorse which need to be processed. on the hook to kill ken i accepted. exactly how big it almost sure he was in 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. i think she thought it at the. time surprised that a witness has turned up who was willing to talk about it openly. talk about it up close. eleanor zachary and co find her response later directed

at the man who was an accessory to the murder of her father. at the new one at that she would say 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 yes 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 $47.00 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 belarus 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 oberlé and the capacity to the possibility to know what 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 all democracies or europe. will not. accept. without solving the important issue of that is appearances and many other problems as world of axis is not only these problem. these i can describe it as an important. the

tip of the iceberg we should everybody sees but. they've been the water the be. civil rights and liberties of 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. and 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 all the opposition politicians who disappeared. human rights activists from amnesty international have

planted trees for them in the dutch city of aand hovan. one see it as an vigil in the growth of remember and. when i got a letter out in the ocean. 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 for bellerose.

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is d w news live from berlin president truck trump warns that he will send in federal troops to end the violence that has overshadowed protests in american cities. if a city or state refuses to take the actions that are necessary to defend the life and property of their residents then i will deploy the united states military and quickly solve the problem for them. he made that remark as protests and on breasts entered a 7th night and reporters came under police fire. her.