Swiss court revisits case of alleged Belarusian regime operative

A 48-year-old Belarusian man accused of helping Lukashenko’s security apparatus abduct and kill opposition figures is due to appear before the St Gallen Cantonal Court on Tuesday. The hearing follows a 2023 acquittal that drew international attention and left Switzerland’s first enforced-disappearance prosecution unresolved.

The defendant, who is physically impaired following an accident, first described his alleged role during his asylum application in Switzerland in 2019. He said he had acted on behalf of President Alexander Lukashenko’s regime and had taken part in the murders of three opposition politicians in 1999. One of the alleged victims was Yuri Zakharenko, Belarus’s former interior minister.

The case has brought a Belarusian political crime into a Swiss courtroom and placed eastern Switzerland at the centre of a test of the country’s ability to prosecute grave abuses committed abroad. Around 30 journalists from Switzerland and other countries attended the first trial in Rorschach, together with human rights organisations.

The appeal was lodged by two daughters of opposition politicians who disappeared at the time and by Geneva-based Trial International. They are seeking convictions for multiple enforced disappearances. The St Gallen court will now examine the evidence and legal arguments again.

The alleged crimes date to 1999, when several prominent Belarusian opposition figures disappeared. Zakharenko, a former interior minister who had broken with Lukashenko, was among those named by the defendant in accounts given during his asylum proceedings and later repeated in public statements.

The defendant presented himself as a member of a Belarusian special forces unit. Prosecutors argued that he was part of a group responsible for making opposition figures “disappear” and that he supplied details about the operations that could have been known only to an insider.

In court, however, the man denied personally carrying out any murders. He acknowledged helping execute orders to abduct and shoot people, while maintaining that he had not killed anyone himself. He also apologised to the victims’ families.

The lower court viewed his testimony with deep caution. Judges noted that he had repeatedly contradicted himself during the asylum process, in questioning by the public prosecutor’s office and at trial. It was also established that Belarus had sentenced him to several years in prison for bribery during the 2000s. The court concluded that his accounts had not established the facts required for a conviction.

Switzerland added enforced disappearance to its Criminal Code in 2017, incorporating an offence based on a United Nations convention. The provision allows Swiss authorities to prosecute certain cases even when the alleged conduct occurred abroad.

That legal framework gives the St Gallen proceedings significance beyond the fate of one defendant. This is the first prosecution of its kind in Switzerland, according to the source material. The case tests how Swiss courts handle allegations that rely on events decades old, witnesses outside Switzerland and testimony from a person whose credibility has been sharply contested.

The complaint was filed by two daughters of opposition politicians who disappeared in Belarus and by Trial International, a Geneva-based NGO that pursues accountability for international crimes. Their legal team has appealed the lower court’s decision and is seeking convictions for multiple enforced disappearances.

The legal route also reflects Switzerland’s wider role in international justice. Swiss courts can become venues for victims and relatives when alleged crimes cannot be effectively investigated in the country where they occurred. The evidence must still meet the same demanding standards that apply in any criminal case. In 2023, Rorschach District Court found that threshold had not been reached.

Rorschach District Court acquitted the defendant in full in 2023. Prosecutors had asked for a three-year prison sentence, with one year suspended, but the presiding judge said the prosecution had not proved the alleged facts.

The court questioned the reliability of the defendant’s accounts and suggested that he might have presented dramatic allegations to strengthen his asylum application. The judges accepted that he had been imprisoned in Belarus for bribery, but rejected the idea that he could be treated as a reliable key witness against the regime.

The prosecution’s case rested on a different assessment. Prosecutors described the man as a confirmed member of a special unit linked to disappearances and argued that his knowledge of the alleged crimes pointed to an insider role. His admission that he helped carry out abductions and shootings also formed part of the dispute, although he denied committing the killings himself.

The public prosecutor’s office did not appeal the acquittal. A spokesperson confirmed that the appeal was brought by the lawyers representing the bereaved families and Trial International. Their challenge means the cantonal court will review the case despite the absence of a prosecution appeal.

The St Gallen ruling will determine whether the case can move from disputed testimony to a criminal conviction. The cantonal court must assess the defendant’s changing accounts, his alleged links to a Belarusian special forces unit and the evidence surrounding the 1999 disappearances.

For the families, the proceedings offer another opportunity to have the fate of the missing examined by a court. Their lawyers say the first judgment failed to recognise the case’s importance. For Trial International, the appeal also carries implications for Switzerland’s use of universal jurisdiction in cases involving alleged abuses abroad.

The hearing comes as Belarus remains under the rule of Alexander Lukashenko, whose government has faced long-running accusations of suppressing opposition. The Swiss case does not decide the political responsibility of the Belarusian regime as a whole. It concerns the criminal responsibility of one man and the evidence that can be proven against him under Swiss law.

The court’s decision will clarify how Swiss judges apply the enforced-disappearance offence introduced in 2017 and how they weigh testimony from an alleged participant whose statements have shifted over time. It will also show whether relatives of people who vanished abroad can pursue accountability through Swiss courts when proceedings in Belarus are unavailable.