English

Prosecutors find no illegalities in KGB's refusal to give Kavalyow's jail notes to mother

The Prosecutor General's Office has found no illegalities in the decision by the Committee for State Security (KGB) not to give Uladzislaw Kavalyow's jail notes to his mother.

Mr. Kavalyow is one of the two young men who were executed in the subway bombing case this past spring.

Shortly after the execution, Lyubow Kavalyow formally requested the chief of the KGB detention center in Minsk and KGB Chairman Vadzim Zaytsaw to give her the notes made by her son during his stay in the jail, but received no reply.

In August, Ms. Kavalyow complained to the prosecutor general, saying that the KGB officials were required by the constitution's Article 40 to reply to her requests but had failed to do so. "Even a refusal to consider an appeal must be motivated in writing,” she said.

In its recent reply to Ms. Kavalyow, the Prosecutor General's Office said that there were no illegalities in the KGB's actions. "I am dissatisfied with such a reply," Ms. Kavalyow told BelaPAN. "Now I can complain to court. But I won't, because after the trumped-up charge against my son and Dzmitry Kanavalaw and their illegal sentencing I realized that there is no independent court in our country."

She accused the KGB of stealing her son's jail notes.

As a result of their trial held between September 15 and November 30, 2011, Mr. Kavalyow and his friend Dzmitry Kanavalaw were convicted of two 2005 bomb explosions in Vitsyebsk, a bomb attack during an open-air Independence Day concert in Minsk in July 2008 and the subway bombing in April 2011.

The Supreme Court of Belarus found Mr. Kanavalaw guilty of committing the explosions and Mr. Kavalyow was found guilty of being accomplice to the crimes. Both were sentenced to death.

Mr. Kavalyow applied for a presidential pardon in early December, while Mr. Kanavalaw decided against doing so, according to authorities.

On March 14, it became known that Alyaksandr Lukashenka had denied clemency to the men. Three days later, the ONT television network announced that Messrs. Kavalyow and Kanavalaw had been executed. //BelaPAN