Aleh Byabenin Death — Suicide or Murder?

The author­i­ties claimed imme­di­ate­ly that an autop­sy estab­lished that Byabenin had com­mit­ted sui­cide. There was no any note left. The foren­sic exam­i­na­tion was pro­longed sev­er­al times, but final­ly the offi­cial state­ment con­clud­ed sui­cide.

The OCSE experts con­firmed the state­ment, but under­lined that they were not autho­rized to con­duct their own inves­ti­ga­tion and guid­ed only by the mate­ri­als pro­vid­ed by the police inves­ti­ga­tion. There was no exhuma­tion of his body. In the mean­time, many of his friend and col­leagues dis­agree with the offi­cial state­ment.

Those who saw the dead body claim there were signs of vio­lence. Jour­nal­ists empha­size the fact that that Biabenin was part of the pre-elec­tion team of Andrey San­nikau, the main oppo­nent of Lukashen­ka, leader of the pub­lic cam­paign “Euro­pean Belarus”. Some of the jour­nal­ists who voiced their doubts about the offi­cial state­ment received threats.