Ex-serviceman who exposed 'death squad' says he is now prosecuted

According to former special forces fighter Yury Harauski, a criminal case has been opened against him in Belarus, while his relatives are under pressure from the KGB. This happened after the ex-soldier told about the "death squad" that eliminated Lukashenka's political opponents, according to the radio, recognized as extremist media in Belarus.

Harauski claims his relatives were summoned to the KGB several times after the publication. His mother, brother, ex-wife and daughter stayed in Belarus. Then they were left alone, but in December 2021, the pressure resumed. Riot police officers took his brother to the General Prosecutor's Office, where he was questioned for about five hours.

According to Harauski, his brother was interrogated by about five people -- all colonels and lieutenant colonels of the KGB. They were interested in his brother and contacts with him.

On January 6, 2022, according to the ex-special force's officer, he learned that a criminal case was opened against him. He does not know under what article.

Harauski also said that after the visit to the Prosecutor General's Office, all his relatives were not allowed to leave Belarus.

He considers the pressure on his relatives an attempt of the secret services to influence him: "I think that this is moral pressure (on relatives). To knock the stability out from under their feet, so that they would have grounds to imprison my brother and say to me: "You are the reason why he is in prison".

However, Harauski is not going to return to Belarus. He plans to write a statement to the Prosecutor General of Belarus and confess of complicity in the crimes, "so that the normal search operations could begin." He plans to write in his statement that Lukashenka had ordered political murders. "We are preparing the necessary documents with the lawyers. I'll send them through a proxy. Why didn't I write this statement before? There was no reason. And now, when they started putting pressure on relatives... It's out of line," he says.

Harauski left Belarus in 2019. Then he told foreign journalists that in the 1990s he participated in the physical elimination of political opponents of the authorities -- former CEC Chairman Viktar Hanchar, former Interior Minister Yury Zakharanka and businessman Anatoly Krasouski. According to him, all three were shot dead personally by SOBR founder Lieutenant Colonel Dzmitry Paulichenka.