BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS
DATE:
10/03/2011
Interrogations at Belarus court fail to confirm charges vs Russians
MINSK, March 10 (Itar-Tass) - Accusations, slapped down on Russian citizens Artyom Breus and Ivan Gaponov, arrested in Belarus, are far-fetched and groundless. This was confirmed again by the first interrogations of plaintiffs that started on Thursday at Minsk’s Moskovsky district court, examining the criminal cases of the Russians.
Not a single of the five interrogated plaintiffs – fighters of the Belarusian police commandos – did not even see the defendants on December 19 in the Independence Square in Minsk, where a mass action was held by supporters of presidential candidates from the opposition. “I see them for first time”, “I did not see the accused” – this is how the plaintiffs replied to the questions of defence lawyers whether they saw Breus and Gaponov among the action participants.
Judging by these testimonies, it is out of the question to claim that precisely these Russians offered tough resistance to police officers.
At the same time, one interesting thing popped up during the interrogations. For instance, one of fighters noted that he alone saw from his post between 100 and 200 active members of the mass rioting. However, the criminal case records only 42 people as accused of participating in disorders, including Breus and Gaponov, who said again on Thursday that they don’t regard themselves guilty, since they came to the place out of curiosity and did not offer any resistance to the police.
Source:
http://www.itar-tass.com/eng/level2.html?NewsID=16028668&PageNum=0
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