St Gallen court convicts Belarusian over opposition figure’s disappearance

The St Gallen Cantonal Court has convicted a 48-year-old Belarusian of enforced disappearance in one case, SRF reported. He received a two-year suspended prison sentence.

The man was allegedly part of a special unit that killed three opposition figures on behalf of Alexander Lukashenko’s regime in 1999. The court said an eight-year prison sentence would have been appropriate for the offence, but took into account that the defendant had fully confessed and cooperated. He also met with a relative of one of the victims.

The court acquitted him in the cases involving the other two victims. In one, the original acquittal stood because it was not appealed. In the case of former interior minister Yuri Zakharenko, the court found that the defendant was an inexperienced newcomer to the unit who believed the operation was intended to intimidate the opposition figures and then release them. In the case leading to his conviction, it found that his experience meant he knew what would happen.

Three opposition figures disappeared in Belarus in 1999, during protests against Lukashenko’s rule. Their fate remained unknown for decades, until a man appeared in a Deutsche Welle documentary claiming to have been part of the unit that killed them. Switzerland’s prosecution of the case relates to a UN convention requiring countries to prevent and punish enforced disappearances, which Switzerland ratified a decade ago.