English

Kavalyow’s family makes another inquiry about his burial place

 

The family of Uladzislaw Kavalyow has once again asked the Belarusian authorities to reveal his place of burial.

Mr. Kavalyow is one of the two young men who were sentenced to death and executed over the April 2011 fatal subway bombing in Minsk.

In their letter to Alyaksandr Lukashenka, the head of the Committee for State Security (KGB) and the head of the interior ministry's Corrections Department, the mother and the sister of Mr. Kavalyow cite the UN Human Rights Committee’s recommendation that the Belarusian authorities reveal Mr. Kavalyow’s burial place and take measures to prevent miscarriages of justice in the future.

The Committee says that the secrecy surrounding the burial of executed convicts is a means of intimidating and punishing their relatives by keeping them in a state of uncertainty and emotional torment.

The complaint was registered on December 15, 2011, and considered on October 29, 2012.

The Belarusian authorities have repeatedly refused to say where Mr. Kavalyow was executed and buried. They cited a rule that allows them not to release the bodies of executed convicts to their families.

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.

The execution of Mr. Kavalyow took place despite an official request from the UN Human Rights Committee not to execute him until his mother's individual communication was considered.

Fifteen people died as a result of the April 11, 2011 subway bombing. //BelaPAN