death penalty
Lukashenko lifts death penalty for German
The President of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko, pardons a German. (Archive photo) Photo
© Alexander Zemlianichenko/AP/dpa
A German who was sentenced to death in Belarus has asked the ruler Lukashenko for clemency. The man considered to be Europe’s last dictator has now overturned the sentence.
The 29-year-old German was sentenced to death in June for alleged mercenary activity and terrorism on behalf of the Ukrainian secret service SBU. Belarus (formerly Belarus), which is considered a dictatorship, is the last country in Europe to carry out the internationally controversial death penalty, namely by shooting him in the back of the neck. Belarusian state television recently showed the German, a paramedic, in a video in which he pleaded guilty and asked for mercy.
The Foreign Office in Berlin condemned the death penalty and announced that the German citizen would be given consular assistance. The way the man was treated was “unbearable”. However, Berlin did not comment on information from the Belarusian Foreign Ministry that Minsk had made a negotiation proposal to resolve the case.
The Belarusian opposition suspects that Lukashenko is demanding a high price for a pardon. Lukashenko could, for example, demand the release of a Russian convicted in Berlin for murder in Berlin’s Tiergarten park on behalf of Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin, on whom he is politically and economically dependent.