Scapegoat border guard sentenced to 2 years

• 18.02.2013, 12:57

The border guard, who missed the teddy bear landing force, was sentenced to two years in a colony.

The border guard, who did not report about the Swedish plane having violated the official duties, was sentenced to two years of imprisonment in a high security colony.

They reported about that to BelTA in the Supreme Court of Belarus.

One of the military courts passed a sentence on 4 January on the case of a border guard, who was found guilty according to the part 2 of the article 453 (the violation of the border control service rules) of the Criminal Code of Belarus. His guilt is that he did not report the respective departments of the Defense Ministry about the fact of the border crossing.

We would remind that on 4 July a civil jet, piloted by the citizens of Sweden, crossed the border of Bealrus, flying from Lithuania, and threw teddy bears in Minsk and Ivianets. The teddy bears had slogans calling for the freedom of speech in the country. The Defense Ministry then stated that there was no violation of the country’s air space and called the information about the teddy bears a provocation.

Belarusian KGB instituted legal proceedings over the fact of the illegal border crossing, two Belarusian citizens were detaned – a photographer Anton Surapin and a real estate dealer Siarhei Basharymau.

Subsequently they were released with the recognizance not to leave.

On 31 July Lukashenka fired the head of the State Border Control Committee Ihar Rachkouski for “improper execution of the official duties on guarding the national security of the Republic of Belarus” and the commander of the air and air defense forces major-general Dzmitry Pakhmelkin.