BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

01/08/2007

Purges reported at Belarus KGB following its chief's dismissal

As it became known to the Belorussky Partisan Internet site, cardinal restructuring of the Belarus State Security Committee, or the KGB, has started, online paper Khartiya'97 reports. The special-task militia division (OMON) officer has been appointed the head of the own security service of the KGB, the site informers report. A dozen or so officers were sacked from the Minsk city and Minsk regional directorates of the KGB, including the heads of the directorates, however, with their retirement pensions retained, Khartiya'97 marks.

The updating of the secrete agency staff reshuffling has been accelerating, according to the online paper. Certain KGB staff-members reportedly confess that they even do not open their files waiting for their fate to be decided, among those being all heads of departments, their deputies, heads of divisions and units, as well as their deputies , the internet edition reports.

The chairman of Belarus State Security Committee Stepan Sukhorenko was dismissed on July 17, just days after the KGB publicly boasted of its success in uncovering a spy ring that was said supplying secrets about Belarusian and Russian defense interests to Poland. It appeared, however, that the main role in revealing the espionage case belonged to the Russian security services. Sukhorenko assumed the post of KGB chief in December 2004. At the time, it was rumored that Sukhorenko's predecessor, Leonid Yerin, lost his job as a result of a friendly conversation he had with a group of activists opposed to President Alexander Lukashenko's apparent attempts to become president-for-life, Radio Liberty reported.

Source:

http://www.axisglobe.com/article.asp?article=1355