Ales Michalevich

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Ales Michalevich (2009)

Ales Michalewitsch ( Belarusian Алесь Анатольевіч Міхалевіч ; born May 15, 1975 in Minsk ) is a Belarusian politician.

Life

From 2004 to 2008 Michalewitsch was vice chairman of the liberal-conservative party BNF . In the presidential election in Belarus in 2010 , he ran as a candidate. On election night, December 20, 2010, Michalevitsch was arrested by members of the secret service in his apartment and was only released from prison on February 19, 2011. At a press conference following his release from custody, Mikhalevich spoke about the torture-like conditions of detention and announced that he owed his freedom only to the fact that he had committed himself to informing the Belarusian KGB . However, he only responded to this on the pretense and intended from the start to disclose the requested IM activity immediately after his release.

In response to Mikhalevich's testimony, the Belarusian security apparatus announced that he had video recordings that showed the opposition politician passing on information about foreign diplomats he knew in prison and joking with the prison officials in harmony with the prison officials. Michalewitsch himself assessed this claim as part of a defamation campaign against him and described it as baseless. On April 4, 2011, the Minsk Public Prosecutor's Office actually published a 7-minute compilation of various interrogation situations in which Michalevich apparently voluntarily praised the KGB's potential as an informant. Although the images shown suggest an overall relaxed detention atmosphere - their publication, which was contrary to usual practice, suggests that the torture allegations expressed by Michalewitsch appear so substantial to the KGB that one tries to use the power of the images to gain the reputation of the opposition politician to undermine.

On March 14, 2011, Mikhalevich announced on his web log that he had gone underground in order to avoid the threat of renewed arrest by the Belarusian KGB. On March 18, 2011, the Czech Foreign Ministry announced in a press release that Mikhalevich had applied for and was granted political asylum in the Czech Republic . Nevertheless, the General Prosecutor's Office in Minsk officially requested the authorities in Prague to extradite Mikhalevich and applied to Interpol for an international arrest warrant for the former presidential candidate.

At the beginning of September 2015, Michalevich was arrested by Belarusian border guards while attempting to travel to his home country by train from Lithuania. He cited the release of political prisoners in Belarus and the desire to see his family again as the reason for his return.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ KGB releases film about Mikhalevich (video) , charter97.org . Retrieved April 4, 2011.
  2. ↑ Mikhalevich left Belarus , charter97.org, March 14, 2011. Retrieved April 4, 2011.
  3. ↑ Exiled Belarusian Presidential Candidate Senses Opposition's Moment To Unify . Radio Free Europe , March 29, 2011. Retrieved April 4, 2011.
  4. ↑ Belarusian authorities ask Interpol to assist in arresting ex-candidate Mikhalevich ( Memento of December 3, 2015 in the Internet Archive ), naviny.by, June 1, 2011.
  5. ↑ В Белоруссии задержали бывшего кандидата в президенты при попытке вернуться на родину. In: Newsru.com. September 8, 2015, Retrieved October 3, 2019 (Russian).
personal data
SURNAME Michalevich, Ales
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Міхалевіч, Алесь Анатольевіч (Belarusian)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Belarusian politician
DATE OF BIRTH May 15, 1975
PLACE OF BIRTH Minsk , Belarusian Soviet Socialist Republic , Soviet Union