30/11/2011 Political Affairs and Democracy
Strasbourg, 30.11.2011 – Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly (PACE) rapporteurs on Belarus, Andres Herkel (Estonia, EPP/CD), and on the death penalty, Renate Wohlwend (Liechtenstein, EPP/CD) have expressed their dismay at the death sentence handed down today on Dmitry Konovalov and Vladislav Kovalev by the Belarusian Supreme Court, which found them guilty of the fatal bombing in the Minsk Metro on 11 April 2011.
"It is outrageous that Belarus continues to blatantly ignore the international community's calls for a moratorium on the death penalty. Such an irreversible, cruel and inhuman penalty is unacceptable in any civilised society, however heinous the crimes of the perpetrator. Moreover, many human rights defenders who monitored the proceedings in this case raise doubts about the defendants' guilt", stressed the rapporteurs.
"It is also deeply regrettable that the work of the death penalty study group of the National Assembly of Belarus, initiated some time ago, has not borne any fruit and that parliamentarians in Belarus do not dare to speak up against the death penalty ", Ms Wohlwend added.
Mr Herkel is preparing a report for the Political Affairs Committee, due to be adopted on 14 December with a view to an Assembly debate in January 2012.