Minsk Police Raid and Search BELSAT Office on Slander Charges. The office has been crushed

Jour­nal­ists keep arriv­ing to the build­ing where Bel­sat office is locat­ed. The police offi­cers do not allow any­one to enter the build­ing. Bel­sat jour­nal­ists who were in the office do not answer tele­phone calls.

The police brought a hack-saw that can be used to cut a met­al door.

As a result, jour­nal­ist Miko­la Dzi­abi­o­la unlocked the door from the inside.

Ali­ak­sei Min­chonak from Bel­sat told TUT.BY, the search is part of the inves­ti­ga­tion of the case under Arti­cle 188 of the Crim­i­nal Code —  slan­der.

—  I know lit­tle, but I know it’s about one of our news pieces about the «doc­tors’ tri­al».

Accord­ing to Bel­sat jour­nal­ist Ales Zaleus­ki, the search is most like­ly part of the crim­i­nal inves­ti­ga­tion of slan­der.

In the sum­mer 2018 Zaleus­ki pre­pared a video sto­ry about cor­rup­tion at the Min­sit­ry of Health Care, report­ing about arrest of Aleh Shved, head of the state-owned enter­prise Medtech­no­cen­ter.

How­ev­er, the text ver­sion on the chan­nel’s web­site did not repeat the video. The text said, Aleh Shved was arrest­ed togeth­er with his broth­er Andrei, head of the State Com­mit­tee of Foren­sic Exam­i­na­tion.

—  We cor­rect­ed the mis­take and pub­lished the retrac­tion imme­di­ate­ly after we noticed the mis­take. How­ev­er, Andrei Shved addressed Shunevich (Min­is­ter of the Inte­ri­or) ask­ing to pros­e­cute me under two crim­i­nal charges —  slan­der and defama­tion of state bod­ies.

***

Who is Andrei Shved?

Born in 1973 in Lelchyt­sy dis­trict. Grad­u­at­ed from the law fac­ul­ty of the Belaru­sian State Uni­ver­si­ty (1996). Worked in the pros­e­cu­tor’s office of Min­sk (1996–1998), and the Gen­er­al Pros­e­cu­tor’s Office (1998–2006). He was head of Legal Exper­tise Depart­ment of the Secu­ri­ty Coun­cil. In 2010–2011 — deputy pros­e­cu­tor gen­er­al. Then, deputy head of the new­ly cre­at­ed Inves­tiga­tive Com­mit­tee. From 2013 — Head of the Foren­sic Exam­i­na­tions Com­mit­tee. Major Gen­er­al of Jus­tice.

Andrei Shved was the head of the oper­a­tive inves­ti­ga­tion group to inves­ti­gate the sub­way ter­ror­ist attack in 2011, reports  NN.BY.

***

Accord­ing to Zaleus­ki, he was con­tact­ed by the tax inspec­torate to review his tax pay­ments. In Novem­ber, the Inves­ti­ga­tion Com­mit­tee decid­ed there were no grounds to start crim­i­nal pro­ceed­ings. Howver, in Jan­u­ary 2019 Min­sk city pros­e­cu­tor’s office insti­gat­ed a new crim­i­nal inves­ti­ga­tion of the account of slan­der.

—  They brought the case back to the Inves­tiga­tive Com­mit­tee. All legal pro­ceed­ings have start­ed all over. But now they are inter­ro­gat­ing us as wit­ness­es. This is more seri­ous than just tak­ing our com­ments. They have already car­ried out inter­ro­ga­tions with a video cam­era.

Accord­ing to the jour­nal­ist, they are look­ing for the per­son who pub­lished the text under the video sto­ry on the web­site.

—  They are prepar­ing inquiries to War­saw (to the main office of Bel­sat — TUT.BY). That’s why the case might last for sev­er­al months.

Zaleus­ki believes, there are no oth­er crim­i­nal cas­es against the TV chan­nel or its staff.

The wit­ness­es in the case are Ales Zaleus­ki, cam­era­man Alexan­der Lubianchuk, and Bel­sat rep­re­sen­ta­tives Ali­ak­sei Min­chonak and Iry­na Slau­nika­va.

Miko­la Dzibi­o­la, who was in office dur­ing the search, says the police seized all the equip­ment. In addi­tion, an inves­ti­ga­tor gave him a doc­u­ment to sign that he could not dis­close an arti­cle of the Crim­i­nal Code, used to start the crim­i­nal pro­ceed­ings that the search was part of.

Dzi­abi­o­la stressed that the goal of the search and seizure of equip­ment, as well as pre­vi­ous sim­i­lar actions by the author­i­ties, was to hin­der the work of Bel­sat jour­nal­ists.

Dur­ing the search, the police seized two com­put­er sys­tem units, three lap­tops, and all data stor­age media.

Dzi­abi­o­la believes that the search and the crim­i­nal case may be relat­ed to the upcom­ing elec­tion cam­paigns in Belarus.