Swiss court acquits Belarus 'death squad' member

A court in Switzerland on Thursday cleared Yury Garavsky of charges related to the disappearance and alleged murder of political opponents of Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko nearly a quarter of a century ago.

The 45-year-old fled to Switzerland from Belarus five years ago and admitted to being part of a "death squad" that kidnapped Lukashenko's political opponents in 1999.

He was charged with enforced disappearance based on "universal jurisdiction," which allows the prosecution of certain grave crimes regardless of where they occurred.

What the court said

At the end of the two-day trial, Garavsky was found not guilty of both enforced disappearance and also of a second charge of perverting the course of justice.

According to DW's correspondent in the courtroom, the presiding judge said Garavsky's was a special case, in which "public authorities were involved in and responsible for the enforced disappearance."

This should be beyond reasonable doubt, said the judge. However, the defendant got "entangled in contradictions" during questioning. 

The judge said that Garavsky had invented parts of his statement. Although the court concluded that he had potentially served in the Belarusian Special Rapid Reaction Unit (SOBR), his role in the kidnappings remained unclear. 

Garavsky tells DW what happened to Lukashenko's opponents

In 2019, Garavsky contacted DW and spoke about his involvement in the kidnapping of Lukashenko's opponents.

Former Interior Minister Yury Zakharenko vanished in May 1999, and in September, former Deputy Prime Minister Viktor Gonchar and his close friend, the businessman Anatoly Krasovsky, also disappeared.

Garavsky told DW the SOBR, had kidnapped Zakharenko and shot him dead in a nearby wood. He explained that the body had been burned in a crematorium on the outskirts of Minsk, the Belarusian capital.

Meanwhile, Hanchar and Krasovsky had been kidnapped near a public bathhouse and shot dead in a forest. Their bodies had been hidden in a grave that had been dug previously.

'Fight for justice' continues

The DW interview, published in December 2019, formed the basis of the case brought by Trial International, a human rights NGO that aims to ensure crimes do not go unpunished and victims see justice.

In court, Garavsky said he had been following orders when he participated in their abductions but insisted he had not killed them.

According to Trial International, he asked family members of the victims for forgiveness for the "role I played in the deaths of these people."

Trial International wrote on X, formerly Twitter, that "the victims' families' fight for justice continues."

lo/rt (dpa, DW sources, AFP)