On November 16, 2008 the suit was registered by the UN Human Rights Committee on behalf of Anatoly, Iryna and Valeriya Krasovsky, and its copy was sent to the defendant, the Republic of Belarus.
The suit of Krasovsky family was prepared by a lawyer company from the Netherlands; the document consists of 100 and has a supplement of 26 documents with more than one thousand pages. In their own name and on behalf of Anatoly Krasovsky, who was forcibly abducted on September 16, 1999, Iryna and Valeriya Krasovskaya call upon the state of Belarus:
1) To immediately interrogate suspects in forcible abductions of Anatoly Krasvsky named in the Special Memorandum of the deputy of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe Christos Pourgourides;
2) To satisfy numerous requests of Anatoly Krasovsky’s family and international community to hold thorough investigation of Anatoly Krasovsky’s disappearance;
3) To identify and tell the name of Anatoly Krasovsky’s burial;
4) To compensate moral and material damages of Anatoly Krasovsky’s abduction’s victims.
The date for answer was initially set for May 16, 2009. However, instead of an answer, Belarusian authorities sent a demand to translate the suit in Russian (the document was prepared in English). Thus, the government received 6 additional months to prepare an answer to complainants. The reply arrived to theUN Human Rights Committee on November the 19th 2009.
Beneath is the translated document in full.
Observations of the competent authorities of the Republic of Belarus in regards to the inadmissibility of initiating proceedings on the complaint by V. Krasovskaya and I. Krasovskaya to the UN Human Rights Committee (case № 1820/2008) on its merits
Communication of V. and I. Krasovskaya is based on the statements of the so-called explanatory memorandum by Ch. Pourgourides and assumptions of the authors concerning the process of investigation of the case of the missing of A. Krasovsky, carried out by the Belarusian law enforcement authorities.
Belarus is not a member of PACE and did not participate in the preparation and approval of the so-called explanatory memorandum by Ch. Pourgourides. In this regard, the State party has nothing to do with the content of this document and does not recognize it as related to the merits of the communication.
Assumptions of the authors of the communication about the process of the investigation of the case of the missing of A. Krasovsky do not correspond to, and in some cases contradict official conclusions of the investigation.
The State party understands that the decision in respect of communication of V. Krasovskaya and I. Krasovskaya should be taken by the Committee in accordance to the established procedures and based on the competent and credible information.
The relatives of V.I. Gonchar and A.S. Krasovsky turned to the internal affairs authorities of Minsk with the reports of their missing on 17 September, 1999. On the basis of the review of the submitted reports about the fact of the missing of the above persons by Minsk city prosecutor's office, the criminal case was initiated in Minsk on September 20, 1999 under Art. 101 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Belarus.
In the course of the investigation it was established, that on the evening of September 16, 1999 V.I Gonchar and his close associate, director of the “Krasiko” Ltd. A.S. Krasovsky, were visiting the sauna, located on Fabrychnaya street, 20 in Minsk. They left the sauna at around 10:35 pm, and got into a Jeep Cherokee car, belonging to A.S. Krasovsky, and since then they were never seen again.
Glass and plastic fragments of the signal lights of the foreign-made car, skid marks and traces of the car’s collision with a tree, as well as blood stains, were found in the course of inspection of the territory adjacent to the scene.
The objects collected on the scene of the accident were submitted to forensic tests.
According to the conclusions of the forensic tests, the obtained objects could belong to the right rear turn-light bulb holder and a braking signal, and side doors of Jeep Cherokee.
Results of the genotypic testing indicate that the origin of the blood traces of A.Krasovsky at the crime scene are ruled out. The reliability of conclusions about the origin of blood stains of V.I Gonchar is 99,9998%.
Analysis of the assembled evidence, including witnesses’ testimonies, suggests that the A. Krasovsky’s car was stopped while trying to leave the sauna area, after which V.I. Gonchar and A.S. Krasovsky were forcibly abducted by unidentified persons and driven away in an unknown direction.
In the course of investigation of the above criminal case various versions of the illegal acts against the missing were put forward and examined, among them the ones motivated by avarice, personal animosity, as well as the versions in connection with their political and commercial activities, etc.
The arguments, disseminated by some media and cited by the relatives of V.I Gonchar and A.S. Krasovsky, about possible implication of top government officials and special services personnel in the disappearance of these citizens, were examined and found unsubstantiated, as well as the allegation by the former head of the Detention unit #1 of the Minsk City Main police department O.L. Alkaev and head of the criminal police of the Ministry of Internal Affairs N.I. Lapatik about the murder of V.I Gonchar and A. Krasovsky with the use of a special silenced weapon, stored in pretrial detention facility - 1.
Alleged burial place of the car and bodies of V.I Gonchar and A.S. Krasovsky in Dokshitsy district of Vitebsk region, which was as indicated by a former employee of the state security, citizen Uglyanitsa, and citizen Zhernosek, was inspected. No traces of the burial of people or materiel were found.
Members of the criminal group of V.A. Ignatovich, M.M. Malik and others, convicted of several serious crimes, were investigated in view of their possible complicity in the disappearance of V.I. Gonchar and A. S. Krasovsky.
The arguments of the authors of appeals to initiate an investigation against commander of the military unit 3214 D.V. Pavlichenko as a suspect in the above criminal cases are not true. Said citizen was not a suspect in the process of investigation, and no procedural steps of compulsion (detention, arrest) had been applied to him within these cases .
Despite the measures taken, so far it has not been possible to determine the whereabouts of V.I Gonchar and A.S. Krasovsky. However, work on resolving and investigation of the aforementioned crime continues. Information about investigative, operative and search actions carried out in this ongoing criminal case is classified.
Authors of the address are notified that the investigation on this criminal case continues, and therefore their arguments about the inaction of law enforcement and closing of the investigation of the case of the missing V.I. Gonchar and A.S. Krasovsky are not substantiated by facts.
Bearing this in mind, and also taking into account, that the procedural decision to terminate the preliminary investigation of the said criminal case is still pending, the conclusions contained in the address by V. Krasovskaya and I. Krasovskaya about their exhausting all available legal recourse under the legislation of the Republic of Belarus are also untrue.
It should be noted that the decision to close the case was appealed by I. Krasovskaya herself (paragraph 58 of communication). In view of this it is not possible to exercise all the available domestic defense remedies before the investigation is concluded. In this regard, the State party is not responsible for communication of V. Krasovskaya and I. Krasovskaya with the Human Rights Committee in the absence of use of all available domestic remedies, and in clear violation of established procedure.
The State party considers the communication of V. Krasovskaya and I. Krasovskaya as unacceptable in form and substance in accordance with Articles 2 and 3 of the Optional Protocol. |