Belarus executes subway bomber

[Enigma11561 336]

I learned today that one of the two men implicated in the subway bombing in a subway station in Minsk was shot in the back of the head. Executed. Lukashenko refused clemency.

The parents were notified, by a letter sent to their homes, that their son had been put to death. Not even allowed to say goodby.

When is a Rambo type gonna knock off that madman? When my wife is in her home country and we are on skype, I am not even allowed to mention his name in our conversations. She fears the government is listening and there could be reprisals. And I would not even be surprised.

When I was applying for her visa, the KGB actually visited her home and place of work investigating her application. That man is one scary son of a bit@h.

[Bad_Daddy 2,209]

Word is that whoever bombed that railway station was one of Luka's own men. The timing was perfect for him seeing how it was right before election time.

[1HappyGuy 45]

So, he sacrificed one of his guys for votes? What, did he think any opposition actually had a chance?

[Bad_Daddy 2,209]

So, he sacrificed one of his guys for votes? What, did he think any opposition actually had a chance?

He was hoping it would get him some public support seeing how it worked so good for Tsar Putin.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_apartment_bombings#Theory_of_Russian_government_conspiracy

Russian apartment bombings

Theory of Russian government conspiracy

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Explanation_attempts_for_the_Russian_apartment_bombing

Incident in Russian Parliament

On September 13, just hours after the second explosion in Moscow, Russian Duma speaker Gennadiy Seleznyov of the Communist Party made a surprising announcement: "I have just received a report. According to information from Rostov-on-Don, an apartment building in the city of Volgodonsk was blown up last night".[78][79][80][81] However the bombing in Volgodonsk took place only three days later, on September 16. When the Volgodonsk bombing happened, Vladimir Zhirinovsky demanded an explanation in Duma, but Seleznev turned his microphone off.[78][82]

Two years later, in March 2002, Seleznyov claimed in an interview that he had been referring to an unrelated hand grenade-based explosion, which did not kill anyone and did not destroy any buildings, and which indeed happened in Volgodonsk.[83][84] It remains unclear why Seleznyov reported such an insignificant incident to the Russian Parliament and why he did not explain the misunderstanding to Zhirinovsky and other Duma members.[83]

FSB defector Alexander Litvinenko described this as a "the usual Kontora mess up": "Moscow-2 was on the 13th and Volgodonsk on 16th, but they got it to the speaker the other way around," he said. Investigator Mikhail Trepashkin confirmed that the man who gave Seleznev the note was indeed an FSB officer.[85]

[edit]Testimony by Alexey Galkin

In December 1999, journalist Robert Young Pelton interviewed senior lieutenant Aleksey Galkin, a GRU officer who was a prisoner of the Chechen rebels.[86] Galkin confessed that the bombing in Buynaksk was organized by a GRU team under the general command of the head of the 14th section of the Central Intelligence Office, Lt. Gen. Kostechko, and GRU director Valentin Korabelnikov.[87][88] Pelton describes the interview with Galkin in his book Three Worlds Gone Mad.[89]

Galkin escaped from captivity at the beginning of 2000. After his escape he stated that Chechen rebels had tortured him to force statements he made to Pelton. His claims have been supported by medical expertise.[38][86] Galkin did not tell anything at all about the alleged GRU involvement in the bombings during his interview to Novaya Gazeta,[86][87] thus he "did not deny" the GRU operation according to Felshtinsky and Pribylovsky.[38]

[edit]Sealing of all materials by Russian Duma

The Russian Duma rejected two motions for parliamentary investigation of the Ryazan incident.[90][91] The Duma, on a pro-Kremlin party line vote, voted to seal all materials related to the Ryazan incident for the next 75 years and forbade an investigation into what happened.

[Enigma11561 336]

The man would sacrifice any of his own people to keep himself in power. The western world can not find any shred of evidence that these two young men did what he claims. He is brutal. From what I have read, this man was told he would die only minutes before he was shot in the back of the head.

Belarus has executed two men convicted for a fatal 2011 metro bomb attack, despite protests from European human rights groups and calls for a re-trial.

Belarussian news media reported Saturday that Vladislav Kovalyov and Dmitry Konovalov, both 25, had been executed.

Kovalyov and Konovalov were convicted in November of staging a bomb attack in a central Minsk metro station. The April 11 blast killed 15 people and wounded more than 100 others.

President Alexander Lukashenko had refused to pardon the two, citing the gravity of the crime.

Belarus is the only European country that still uses the death penalty. European leaders and rights groups had urged Minsk not to carry out the death sentences on the two factory workers, and they condemned the executions.

European Union chief diplomat Catherine Ashton said Saturday "the two accused were not accorded due process including the right to defend themselves."

The executions are likely to further strain relations between the former Soviet republic and the European Union.

Mr. Lukashenko has ruled his country with an iron fist for almost 18 years, keeping it out of the European mainstream. Minsk's relations with Brussels have reached an all-time low after Mr. Lukashenko's launched a crackdown on political opposition following mass protests against his re-election in December 2010.

[Enigma11561 336]

This is from a paper in Australia

Belarus executes one Minsk metro bomber

AFP Updated March 18, 2012, 4:06 am

Vladislav Kovalyov, one of the two men sentenced to death for a deadly Minsk metro bombing last year, sitting inside the defendant s cage in Setpember 2011 during his trial in the House of Justice in the Belarus capital Minsk. Belarus has executed Kovalyov, his sister told AFP Saturday, adding that he had been shot dead.

AFP © Enlarge photo

MINSK (AFP) - Belarus has executed one of two convicted Minsk metro bombers, Vladislav Kovalyov, his family said Saturday, sparking strong condemnation from the European Union.

His sister Tatyana Kovalyova told AFP by telephone that they had been informed of the execution by gunshot of 26-year-old Kovalyov, who had pleaded not guilty to acting as an accomplice.

"We will not stop. We will rehabilitate Vladislav. God forbid that this happen again, that they shoot an innocent person," she said, speaking from the family's home town of Vitebsk in eastern Belarus.

The Vyasna rights group posted a scan on its website of the Supreme Court's brief letter dated Friday informing Kovalyov's mother that "the sentence of your son Vladislav Kovalyov has been carried into effect."

The curt letter, signed by the court's deputy chairman, told Lyubov Kovalyova that she could collect a death certificate but did not mention collecting her son's body.

The blast in April 2011 struck the city's busiest metro station killing 15 people near the offices of President Alexander Lukashenko, who has ruled the ex-Soviet state with an iron grip for nearly 18 years.

The explosion marked the worst attack in the republic's post-Soviet history and was immediately blamed by the authoritarian president on foreign and domestic enemies.

Lukashenko on Wednesday refused to grant clemency to the two men, Kovalyov and Dmitry Konovalov, sentenced to death for the attack.

European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton on Friday urged Belarus not to carry out the executions, calling for Minsk to enter a moratorium on the use of the death penalty.

In a statement Saturday, she "strongly condemns" the execution.

"The High Representative is aware of the terrible crimes that these two men were accused of and her thoughts are with the victims and their families," said the statement.

"At the same time, the High Representative notes that the two accused were not accorded due process including the right to defend themselves," it said, adding that the European Union opposes the death penalty.

In a separate release, the president of the European parliament, Martin Schulz, said he was "horrified" by the execution and called on Belarus authorities to spare the second condemned man.

Kovalyov was sentenced as an accomplice while Konovalov was found guilty of bringing explosives to the central Minsk metro station and setting off the blast on a busy platform.

Kovalyov had pleaded not guilty and in court retracted his initial confession, saying it had been made under pressure from investigators.

No information was available on the fate of the second man, Konovalov, who had pleaded guilty to the attack and never applied for amnesty.

Kovalyov's sister Tatyana said that the family was not in contact with the other man's relatives and did not know whether he was still alive.

The two suspects were also found guilty in connection with a bomb attack at Independence Day celebrations in Minsk in 2008 as well as several attacks in their native city of Vitebsk in 2005 that injured more than 100 people.

Kovalyov's mother waged a tireless campaign for her son's life, travelling to Strasbourg to tell the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly that both young men had been framed.

She also filed an appeal directly to Lukashenko for clemency and on Friday asked him to delay the execution for a year after she submitted a complaint to the United Nations Committee on Human Rights.

"Our mother is very bad now. She can't speak," Kovalyov's sister said.

Lukashenko was re-elected in December 2010 in a controversial vote.

The speed of the investigation and lack of motive for the two factory workers to carry out the attack sparked speculation that it was a plot by security services to justify a crackdown on Lukashenko's foes.

The attack coincided with a massive government crackdown on the opposition who took to the streets to protest against Lukashenko's re-election.

Belarus, which has grown increasingly isolated from the West, is the last country in Europe to administer the death penalty, although the practice is highly secretive and no official statistics exist.

The country's former executioner wrote a book detailing the practice after fleeing to Germany, saying that prisoners are shot in the back of the head and their bodies buried in a secret location.

Edited March 18, 2012 by Enigma11561

[Bad_Daddy 2,209]

Welcome to RUB Politics 101. Russia, Belarus and now Ukraine all run by criminal henchmen. Nothing changes over there and I doubt it will anytime soon. Lukashenko is financially supported by the Kremlin as is the henchmen calling the shots in Kiev atm. The only ones over there that I would ever trust to run a government are the Western Ukrainians (Europeans).

[X Factor 1,112]

[Bad_Daddy 2,209]

http://news.yahoo.com/belarus-arrests-3-leading-opposition-activists-175720255.html

Belarus arrests 3 leading opposition activists

By YURAS KARMANAU | Associated Press – 10 hrs ago

MINSK, Belarus (AP) — Belarus arrested three top opposition figures Wednesday who were on their way to Brussels to meet with European Union officials, a move certain to further fuel tensions with the bloc.

The 27-nation EU already has imposed sanctions on authoritarian Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko's regime over its crackdown on dissent and recalled its ambassadors from the ex-Soviet nation, which is wedged between Russia and Poland.

Those arrested were Anatoly Lebedko, the head of Belarus' largest opposition United Civil Party; Sergei Kalyakin, the leader of the Fair World leftist party; and Alexander Otroshchenkov, a leading activist of the European Belarus group.

They were detained on a train as they were heading to Moscow to fly to Brussels and have been put in police custody on charges of hooliganism pending a trial Thursday.

"It looked like some wild special operation: plainclothed people broke into our compartment and took us off the train by force," Lebedko told The Associated Press by phone before police took his cell away. "We have become hostages of Lukashenko."

Russia is the main sponsor and ally of Lukashenko's regime, and citizens of the two nations travel freely across the border.

Earlier this month, Lukashenko's government started barring the regime's critics from foreign trips. The victims of the ban would only learn about it once they were already at the airport.

Officials have refused to comment on reports that the government has compiled a list of journalists, opposition activists and human rights defenders forbidden to leave the nation of 10 million.

Lebedko has protested the ban in court, which hasn't yet delivered its ruling.

Lukashenko, who has been dubbed Europe's last dictator by critics, has been in office since 1994. He has relentlessly stifled dissent and independent media and was re-elected in a 2010 vote that Western countries and monitors called deeply flawed.

Belarusian rights activists say 12 opposition activists, including two former presidential candidates, are in prison on political charges.

[Bad_Daddy 2,209]

http://news.yahoo.com/ap-interview-ukraine-prosecutor-investigating-jailed-former-pm-111321302.html

AP Interview: Ukraine prosecutor investigating jailed former PM Tymoshenko in murder case

By The Associated Press | Associated Press – Wed, Mar 14, 2012

KIEV, Ukraine - A senior Ukrainian prosecutor says that a firm controlled by jailed former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko paid for the contract-style killing of a lawmaker and businessman in 1996.

Prosecutor General Renat Kuzmin's comments during an interview Wednesday with The Associated Press further decrease the likelihood that Tymoshenko will be released from jail any time soon. Tymoshenko is serving a seven-year sentence after being convicted of abuse of office in a trial that the West condemned as politically motivated.

Kuzmin said that companies controlled by Tymoshenko and former Prime Minister Pavlo Lazarenko had transferred money to pay the killers of Yevhen Shcherban.

Lazarenko is serving a nine-year sentence in the United States on charges of extortion and corruption.

http://news.yahoo.com/ukraines-jailed-ex-pm-stand-trial-2nd-case-145709257.html

Ukraine's jailed ex-PM to stand trial in 2nd case

Associated Press – 11 hrs ago

KIEV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukrainian prosecutors say that jailed former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko will stand trial on tax evasion charges in a new case.

Tymoshenko, the country's top opposition leader, is serving a seven-year prison term on charges of abuse of office in a trial condemned as politically motivated in the West. She has also been charged with evading tens of million hryvna (several million dollars) in taxes while heading an energy company in the mid-1990s.

The Prosecutor General's office spokesman Yuri Boichenko said Wednesday the tax evasion investigation has been completed and will be handed over to court within the next five days. He said the trial should start in a few weeks.

Tymoshenko denies all the charges as an effort by President Viktor Yanukovych to bar a rival from politics.