it was stories behind the headlines. what is the heart of the story why does it matter who live in power. to stay focused if you want answers to cut through the noise to get to the truth. my neighbors are telling and i want to dabble. in. 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 the recall we were acting on orders. we were given a verbal order because there were any of us had refused we would have been replaced

and the next man would have done it all the stronger the stronger. we are talking about a conspiracy. what don't you like about human rights and better roads here you have the right just there in the streets and. with the thought looking 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 yuri fled to a german spy. eking 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 moved to the shores like that 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 you. since then i have lived alone all sorts of 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 murder 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 in the us 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 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 eureka rat scheme 2 men follow saccharine 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 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. 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. but there was the.

since then look 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 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 my gun is that 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 look. all around me here very. dear friends sure. 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 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 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. saw his mission was to tackle smugglers and the mafia but our witness says that wasn't this solved. 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 zakhar enco on may the 7th and who was involved in eliminating concha on september 16th. series a list of all the people who knew about it and who were involved this is a. serious loser who all the orders were given verbal with the meters just all but 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 who 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 you 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 chick 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 and there were more here we are in germany at the home of soccer and as 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 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 victor gone china and businessmen anatole across 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 invaded. by. this this is where we killed. the road after about 200 meters it goes about 20 meters into the forest. this is where we killed. 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. their families 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 child and his staff during the referendum 3 far. more thought should be stopped if 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 gone shot. if you can all kind of blown up going to disclose the matter on. and they were given a reason for getting rid of gone china. in the bubblegum sure all those cars in the

bomb store were noble we were told later on charge had evidence showing that lucas shank oh i've come to power illegitimately and that the vote in 1996 was rigged. the deal was to storm but gone child was in possession of this evidence. you know when you were brilliant that they told us afterwards that we had eliminated him because of this compromising material that we wanted to get. sacramento and cross off ski 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 was. a lot of things would be better today and most importantly there would be no war hero 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 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 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 bellerose.

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 use on us on us 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 because it's actually the. today

is the 1st time that elena 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. let alone to hear how it happened. you need nerves of steel and yes we 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

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 vince again investigation belarus seems very small. that's a problem well the. never approach if i would close the day when a problem investigation is conducted and that 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 or fish else my mind goes to the president.

who was lucky 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 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 look at those 1st visit to an e.u. country in many years. and at the press conference the question of the opposition politicians who disappeared was rawest. did not and but he admitted that he rules his country in an authoritarian mannah. correction which.

i also want the citizens of our country to be absolutely sovereign and independent we know that we are only a self-sufficient and appends 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 minsk. 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 line might have question that lead down and signed. but when a young man receives an order for your part of the system or your not. adorable so i knew i had to follow this through the use of the rules of the group if i had filed i would have ended up in the same hole in the ground. was awkward prosector's a heard him call. for the council of europe investigate his 2nd raincoats 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 an official document from minsk which was passed to investigators from the bellerose public prosecutor's office.

on behalf of the state that's why they use the pistol from. just to give you don't appear that these were adults. and that's a kind of message. to say you know this is not official 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 and heads for symmetry. the group commander. disappears with the corpse in the direction of the crematorium there is no trace of the body after that. the witness

statements of really incriminates dimitri papua change a highly decorated officer in the bellerose ministry of internal affairs as did the man who deployed the 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 our free screening is 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 mean you know everything else depends on you and the judicial system in belarus. this is for her and. words of remorse which need to be processed. on the hook to kill can 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. if being thought of that being out. of i'm surprised that a witness has turned up who is willing to talk about it openly. about it up close. eleanor's occurring co finds her response later directed at the man who was an

accessory to the murder of her father. i think you want it 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 to the pound 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 used. 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 reuss flag is not among them in order to become a member bellerose 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 oh but that the capacity to the possibility to know what happened we can't condemn that that but 1st we must know must clearly know what is responsible and in 4th disappearance is a way to i try i think that 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. the

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 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 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 is in europe. 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. once a year there's an vigil in the growth of remembrance. 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 the terrorists.

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understanding of nature. to mark the 250000 of verse 3 of the composer's birth i like sharing program with by of not you know he's good. beethoven world wide. history project starts on d w. this is g.w. news and these are our top stories thousands have been staging peaceful protests in new york city the mayor has extended a nighttime curfew after outbreaks of violence and looting during anti-racist protests demonstrations kicked off across the u.s. last week after police in the city of minneapolis killed a black man in custody. thousands of people in paris and defied a ban on large gatherings this evening to protest the death in 26.