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UN Human Rights Committee concludes that Andrey Zhuk was executed arbitrarily

The UN Human Rights Committee has concluded that the rights of Andrey Zhuk, a death row inmate executed in March 2010, were violated during the investigation period and his trial, and that was arbitrarily deprived of his life, human rights defender Andrey Kislyak told BelaPAN.

"The Committee has agreed with everything he wrote in our individual communication," said Mr. Kislyak, who had filed the complaint with the UN human rights body on behalf of Mr. Zhuk's mother in October 2009. "Zhuk was pressured into testifying against himself. The principle of the presumption of innocence was violated and so was his right to legal aid and a fair trial."

The Committee calls on the Belarusian government to prevent such violations in the future, Mr. Kislyak said, adding that the Committee would probably have demanded a retrial if Mr. Zhuk had been alive.

Andrey Zhuk was executed on March 18, 2010, despite an official request from the UN Human Rights Committee not to execute him until his mother's individual communication was considered.

In July 2009, the Minsk Regional Court sentenced the 25-year-old man to death over the murder of two employees of a farming company in the Salihorsk district, Minsk region.

His accomplice, Ivan Sarokin, who was then 26 years of age, was sentenced to life imprisonment, and Uladzimir Maroz, the getaway driver who was 24, to 13 years in prison. According to the prosecution, Zhuk and Sarokin murdered the two men to steal payroll money in their car. The robbery took place on a road near the village of Kryvichy, Salihorsk district, on February 27, 2009, when the two employees of Balshavik Ahra were traveling to the company’s office with more than 62 million rubels (almost $22,000) to be paid in wages to its staff.

Belarus is the only country in Europe and the post-Soviet region where the death sentence remains a sentencing option and prisoners are executed. The European Union and other international organizations have repeatedly called on the Belarusian government to abolish the death penalty or declare a moratorium on it.

Executions in Belarus are carried out by a gunshot to the back of the head. Neither the condemned nor relatives are told of the scheduled date of the execution, and the relatives are not informed of where the body is buried. About 400 prisoners have reportedly been executed in Belarus over the last 17 years, and only one death sentence has been commuted to life in prison.