Pensioner to Be Tried for Threats to Lukashenka

06.03.2008. Tags: detentions.
Source: Charter`97.

Viktar Rakusevich is to appear before the court of the Zavadski District of Minsk on 12 March. He is accused of threats against Aliaksandr Lukashenka.

According to the police operation record, Viktar Rakusevich phoned to them at 6 p.m. on 17 February and expressed his negative attitude towards the liquidation of benefits for pensioners to a duty operator. He also threatened bodily harm to president Aliaksandr Lukashenka and his family.

The officer on duty took the threat seriously. The telephone number was determined and operational group headed by a lieutenant colonel. The offender was detained and guarded to the temporary detention facility.

The ‘political terrorist’ himself says he doesn’t remember anything about this case. He was drunk and was sleeping heavily, and was awaken by the police officers, who came to avert the threat hanging over the head of state. The offender was guarded to the police department for questioning, but the he had high blood pressure caused by alcohol and anxiety. So the police officers had to call for emergency two times. They didn’t leave him in the cell till morning, as they had planned before, but let him go. They promised the investigation would reveal the details of his artful plan, and he would have great problems.

“Ezhednevnik” has found Viktar Rakusevich and asked him about the events:

‘I thought they could break the door, when they were trying to open it. A mob of policemen came, among them a lieutenant colonel, a major and a captain. They invited attesting witnesses, and a man in civvies took pictures of my flat. They asked where I kept arms and how I was going to fulfill my plan. Then they took me to the police department and interrogated me there. I wrote in the report I disagreed with the accusation. I claim now that I didn’t phone to anywhere and didn’t say anything like that.

I was dead drunk, was sleeping heavily, and the door was open, anyone might come in and phone. Well, what is the advantage for me to destroy physically the president? On the contrary, I voted for him three times. I said to the police I had nothing against Lukashenka. The only bad thing I could say that I regretted he had deprived us pensioners of benefits. If he allowed paying 25 per cent of transport fare, it would be easier to live – pension is small, but prices are growing.