Belarus initiates 135 criminal cases against individuals who fought in Ukraine
As the Head of the Main Directorate for Combating Organized Crime and Corruption Nicolai Karpenkov said in an interview with the newspaper Zvezda on March 25th, criminal cases have been initiated against Belarusians fighting on both sides of the conflict in Ukraine, as reported by Radio Polsha.
“It is important not to let in foreign militias-mercenaries, radicalized Muslims, members involved in military actions in Ukraine and in the Middle East to Belarus. We are developing operational records of Belarusian militias who fought in Ukraine and now are returning home. It is done in order to control people who could pose a military threat to the state. 135 criminal cases have already been initiated against such Belarusians,” Karpenkov said.
Before that, as the Belarusian media noted, the number of criminal cases initiated against Belarusians fighting in Ukraine had not been reported. Nikolai Karpenkov emphasized that according to the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA), nearly 140 Belarusians are participating in hostilities in Ukraine.
“We have a list of persons who are in the zone of armed conflict in Ukraine and are taking part in some way in the hostilities on one side or the other in the conflict. There are 140 persons on this list,” he stated.
The representative of the Ministry of Internal Affairs noted that a separate unit in the structure of the MIA of Belarus will be created which will work on tracing the mercenaries. “We take into account modern tendencies in the criminal world and are planning to carry out reorganization. We should establish a unit which will work to intercept activities of the bosses of Transnational Organized Crime, to detect activities of militias and mercenaries,” Karpenkov said.