Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya's Representative on Legal Affairs, Siarhej Zikratski, commented on the statement of the Investigative Committee of Belarus, which completed an inquiry into torture in August 2020.
Mr. Zikratski said, “Today, it was reported that the Investigative Committee of Belarus completed an investigation into the fact of torture and humiliation that were committed by the security forces in August 2020. It came as no surprise that no criminal case was initiated.
The Investigative Committee considered that “the means and methods chosen by the law enforcement officers were proportionate and were used to cause the least harm in the given situation”.
As the Committee announced, “the arguments of all those who applied were thoroughly studied, forensic, medical, and other examinations were carried out, documents from offender detention centers were examined, eyewitnesses were interviewed”.
I have a few questions related to the statement of the Committee and a couple of things to remind you of. But questions first.
- Do you consider it “proportionate to the given situation” to keep dozens of people in a stuffy little cell for more than a day without food or drink?
- Do you think it is “proportionate” that the officers marked people's hair with paint, then cut it off and beat them?
- The least harm in the given situation was to subject people to a 'welcome parade' (forcing them to run under baton beating), make them kneel – and beat those who could no longer stand, right? After all, the officers did not kill those people – that means less harm.
- You talk about a thorough examination of the arguments of all the applicants. Do you take into account the recordings of the telephone conversations of the security forces that were published by Cyber-partisans? Don't those recordings contain direct admissions of intent to commit violence based on political convictions?
Now let me remind you of something. Read the note to article 128 of the Criminal Code of Belarus. That is where you can see the definition of torture. What happened at Akrestsina detention center is torture. And all the security officers involved in those tortures committed a serious criminal offense, a crime against the peace and security of humanity.
Responsibility under Article 128 of the Criminal Code of Belarus is imprisonment for a term of 7 to 25 years, or life imprisonment, or even the death penalty. Let me remind you that the statute of limitations for particularly grave crimes is 15 years. I will also remind you that, under Article 83 of the Criminal Code, the issue of applying the statute of limitations to a person who has committed a crime for which he may be sentenced to life imprisonment or the death penalty is resolved by the court. This means that even after 15 years, the statute of limitations for this crime will not expire. Even after 15 years, the court and only the court will decide whether to bring the perpetrators to justice and what punishment to impose.
I would also like to remind you that all the pathetic attempts to hide the traces of a crime are crimes as well and will be investigated too. Sufficient evidence of the offenses has already been recorded, and the efforts of capturing them continue.
We are confident that everyone who is involved in the commission of grave and particularly grave crimes will be justly punished”.
