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| Dmitry Konovalov and Vladislav Kovalyov |
Belarus has executed one of two men convicted for a fatal 2011 metro bomb attack, despite protest from European human rights groups and calls for a re-trial, a relative of the executed man said on Saturday.
The execution is likely to further sour already strained relations between the former Soviet republic and the European Union whose ambassadors left Belarus this month in a diplomatic row triggered by fresh EU sanctions.
Belarus is the only country in Europe to retain the death penalty and rights groups had urged it not to carry out the death sentences on two 25-year-old factory workers, Vladislav Kovalyov, whose execution was confirmed on Saturday, and Dmitry Konovalov, whose fate is not yet known.
Both were sentenced last November for carrying out the attack at the “October” metro station at rush hour in central Minsk which killed 15 people and wounded dozens more.
“We received a letter from the Supreme Court this morning... saying that the sentence had been carried out,” Tatyana Kovalyova, the dead man’s sister, told Reuters.
“The letter was dater March 16. They did everything very quickly.”
Konovalov’s family has declined to talk to the media and it was unclear whether he had also been executed.
Petros Efthymiou of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe said this week: “The lack of fairness in the trial and the lack of transparency in Belarussian court should lead the authorities to reconsider their decision.”
At his trial, Kovalyov said he had never confessed and had only agreed to testify against his childhood friend Konovalov after hearing his screams from a nearby jail cell. After being convicted he asked President Alexander Lukashenko for clemency.
Earlier this week, Lukashenko said he had refused to pardon the two, citing the gravity of the crime.
Lukashenko, an autocratic leader in power since 1994, has kept his country out of the European mainstream and Belarus’ relations with the EU are at a low after a crackdown on political opposition following mass protests against Lukashenko’s re-election in December 2010.
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