dissipating. massive great loss are supposed to prevent flooding but they only delay the inevitable. how will we live in the future. 66 mean by using sea levels starts to sit on d. w. . 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 were both in the book because 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 to the us the strongest. we are talking about a conspiracy. what don't you like about human rights and better rosalee here you have the right just there over there. but that all that and 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. and move it to the shores like that 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 all sorts of 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 would either arrest me or imprisonment is. a liberal i didn't want to sit in a jail or make a confession or sling it will be accused of something i hadn't done in the us a get the book. and these are stored in 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 occurring co 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 eureka 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 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 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 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. it was not going as of yet there was. 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 he agreed. dear friends sure there was a 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 yuri gerad 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 are in the sober. bella bruce 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 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 was this. says who all the orders were given verbal with the meter 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. or you live 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 colleagues 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 involved 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 at the war here we are in germany at 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 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. and businessmen. and members of the opposition to the president the witness tells us. thought that this is the military base in big drama. this this is where we killed them this would dance in the road after about 200 meters it goes about 20 meters into the forest this. this is where we killed concha and christophe skis to. the border and here about 50 meters away a grave was down this road was this would spoil the british will dress them and

burn their clothing here only their shoes were tossed into the grave and buried with. who is a. really after time a victim 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 $34.00 of the 4th quarter peace started k.g.b. agents and special units blocked their offices. preventing the concho from entering the washing machine on their property the witness from the death squad tells us that there was a reward of a $1000.00 for murdering gunshot. if you cannot go alone o'brien you just lost a matter on it and they were given a reason for getting rid of gunshot. in the

store with noble we were told later on charge had evidence showing that lucas shank a come to power illegitimately 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 that we were looking. gone child zakhar vento 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 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 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 had only visited her in germany. she said this angeles for you elena zucker recommended herself 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. had never served 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 because it's actually the. today

is the 1st time that elena 2nd rank 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. 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

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 belarus their ability we have today to run the vince again 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 consent 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 the night he knew about it maybe he didn't know but i can be sure but i think he did not get the storms. accusations that barely reach alexander lukashenko for many years the president of bennett was not welcome in the west that changed in november 29 teams. 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 right used the christian code did not and sa bought 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 we know 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 2 means. gorecki says he had no choice he had to take part in the assassination.

of the will doing was but there was no girl in the limelight of question that deep down inside there 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 bros of the country if i had the final guy i would have ended up in the same ole in the ground as. was recorded plus a quicker the hood income for the council of europe investigate his 2nd rank o's murder was clearly the work of a death squad. a death walk. by a lovely shared walk. 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 death's court. house. on behalf

of the state that's why they use the pistol from war that will use for the of executions. just to give it an appearance that these where will teach 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 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 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 pappy a chink or a highly decorated officer in the belarus ministry of internal affairs did the man who deployed the soap a 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 murders and i offer my

apologies. i can show you where they are buried on the matter you heard on the. 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 kill 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. thing that at the 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. 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. and that but you know she died for the power yards people like him are dependent on this 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 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 ability and the capacity to the possibility to know what's happened we can't condemn that that but 1st we must know math clearly no one is responsible. in false 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 one of the axis 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 they are easy to 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. and 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 bella reuss is in europe of. 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 will in the growth of remember and. when i get a letter. 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 light on for those left behind as well as for the terrorists.

impressive and surreal. in india nature has been taking a breather. the lockdown has shown how much more still needs to be done climate change is good because they are very hot even talking wolf who wants to green economy for the environment and the people. he killed in. 30 minutes phone d w. this

is d w news live from berlin protests in the u.s. enter their 8th night people gathering near the white house across the country ignoring curfews and calling for an end to police brutality and braces also coming out. while interrupts in paris after demonstrators there defy a phantom gatherings the protest against what they say is systemic racism among police. and this kenya contends with a growing number of coronavirus cases will find out how it's.