URGENT APPEAL for Aleh Gryshkautstou and Andrei Burdyka likely to be executed within the next few weeks in Belarus

The clemency applications of two men on death row in Belarus, Aleh Gryshkautstou and Andrei Burdyka have been turned down. They are likely to be executed within the next few weeks.

Aleh Gryshkautsou, aged 29, and Andrei Burdyka, aged 28, were sentenced to death by shooting on 14 May 2010 for crimes committed during an armed robbery on a flat in Grodno in October 2009. Both men were found guilty of premeditated murder, armed assault, arson, kidnapping of a minor, theft and robbery. On 17 September 2010, the Supreme Court in Minsk turned down their appeals.

The families of the two men only learnt that President Lukashenka had refused their requests for clemency after the news was broadcast on national television on 22 February. On 24 February, Andrei Burdyka’s mother received a letter from him in which he said that he would be seeing a priest on 23 February. This may indicate that his execution is very imminent.

Aleh Gryshkautstou and Andrei Burdyka have not denied the charges. However, Amnesty International opposes the death penalty in all cases without exception. It violates the right to life, as proclaimed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It is the ultimate cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment.

In Belarus, prisoners on death row are told that they will be executed only moments before the sentence is carried out. They are shot in the back of the head; sometimes more than one bullet is needed. The body is not handed over to the family, who are often informed only afterwards, and the place of burial is kept secret, causing further distress to relatives.

BACKGROUND INFORMATION

Aleh Gryshkautsou is also known as Aleg Gryshkautsou.

Belarus carried out two executions in 2010. Vasily Yuzepchuk and Andrei Zhuk, were executed in March 2010, approximately two months after their clemency applications had been turned down. As in all death penalty cases in Belarus, neither the prisoners nor their relatives were informed of the date in advance. Andrei Zhuk’s mother only learnt of her son’s execution afterwards when she tried to deliver a food parcel on 19 March. The execution was carried out despite the fact that both men had applied to the UN Human Rights Committee, and on 12 October 2009 the Committee had made a request to the government not to execute the two men until it had considered their cases.

RECOMMENDED ACTION: Please send appeals to arrive as quickly as possible:

--Calling on President Lukashenka to stop the executions of Aleh Gryshkautstou and Andrei Burdyka;

--Calling on President Lukashenka to establish an immediate moratorium on the use of the death penalty, in line with UN General Assembly resolution 63/168, adopted on 18 December 2008.

APPEALS TO:

President

Alyaksandr Lukashenka

Administratsia Prezidenta Respubliki Belarus

ul.Karla Marksa, 38

220016 Minsk

BELARUS

Fax: 011 375 17 226 06 10 OR 011 375 17 222 38 72

Email: contact@president.gov.by

Salutation: Dear President Lukashenka

COPIES TO:

Ambassador Oleg Kravchenko

Embassy of the Republic of Belarus

1619 New Hampshire Ave NW

Washington DC 20009

Fax: 1 202 986 1805

Email: usa@belarusembassy.org

politics@belarusembassy.org

PLEASE SEND APPEALS IMMEDIATELY.

President Lukashenko denies clemency to Aleh Hryshkawtsow and Andrey Burdyka

February 25, 2011: Belarusian president Alyaksandr Lukashenko rejected clemency requests from death row inmates Aleh Hryshkawtsow, 29, and Andrey Burdyka, 28, according to Belarusian human right defenders. They were were sentenced to death by the Hrodna Regional Court on May 14, 2010, for an alleged triple murder in October 2009.

Burdyka and Hryshkawtsow, who had previous convictions, were found to have robbed an apartment in Hrodna in October 2009, killing one man and two women and taking a child hostage. They reportedly set fire to the apartment and then forced a taxi driver to drive them to Minsk or Moscow, but were arrested the following morning when the taxi driver escaped.

On 17 September, the Supreme Court of Belarus rejected appeals against the death sentences.

In their appeals, Burdyka and Hryshkawtsow argued that investigators had violated procedural regulations and the International Covenant on Civic and Political Rights, using illegal methods to obtain confessions. In addition, both Burdyka and Hryshkawtsow insisted that they had murdered only one person and blamed the other two murders on each other.

The two men are currently held in the detention centre on Minsk's Valadarskaha Street.

Source: BBC, 25/02/2011
_________________________

Use the tags below or the search engine at the top of this page to find updates, older or related articles on this Website.

Comments

Alabama Set To Carry Out Execution This Week

Alabama is preparing to execute Jeremy Williams, who pled guilty to the 2021 rape and murder of five-year-old Kamarie Holland. The execution is scheduled for Thursday (August 13) at the Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore, Alabama. Williams, who is 41, requested the death penalty and waived his right to appeal, making this the first execution in Alabama this year.

Tennessee | The doctor who helps put prisoners to death

Dr. Mark Fowler assisted in the failed execution of a Tennessee prisoner. Physicians are meant to heal patients—why is he working in the death chamber? Mark Fowler, a physician with 25 years’ experience, stepped beneath the bright lights and approached the middle-aged man lying on a gurney. Around him, people in medical gowns prepared needles and sterile tubing. It had all the appearances of a hospital setting. Fowler had been called in to help establish an IV line through which the 57-year-old man, Tony Carruthers, would be injected with pharmaceutical drugs. The team had struggled to find a vein, so Fowler was summoned to set a central line—an intravenous catheter inserted into the major vein below the collarbone.

Alabama executes Jeremy Williams

Tennessee and Oklahoma have put inmates to death within 30 minutes of each other, and Alabama followed suit hours later as U.S. states executed three men in one day. Tennessee and Oklahoma put inmates to death within 30 minutes of each other Thursday, and Alabama followed suit hours later as U.S. states executed three men by lethal injection in one day for the first time since 2010. The Tennessee man was executed for killing a maid at a motel in 1985, and the Oklahoma man for killing his girlfriend in 2003. In Alabama, a man was put to death Thursday evening for killing a 5-year-old girl he had paid her mother to abuse.

Tennessee executes Darrell Hines

The state has spent millions of dollars over decades to execute a seriously ill man who was already incarcerated. The state of Tennessee executed death row inmate Darrell Hines Thursday morning, according to an advocacy group. No formal announcement of the execution has been issued by state leaders yet. The execution was slated for 10 a.m. Thursday at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville. [DPN update] Hines was pronounced dead at 10:43 a.m. CDT. His last meal was fried chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, coleslaw, corn, fries, biscuits, a chicken sandwich, chocolate chip cake, and sweet tea.

The 'Black Widow' shakes Iran: 10 death sentences for a serial killer who killed 12 men

Kolthum Akbari, an Iranian woman widely dubbed the “Black Widow,” was convicted of serial murders of elderly men she married, often temporarily. Official accounts generally center on 11 murders (plus one attempted murder), though Akbari herself gave varying figures and investigations suggested she had many more marriages. The sentencing occurred primarily in September 2025 in Mazandaran Province, with ongoing reporting and updates into 2026. The 56- to 59-year-old killer confessed to killing at least 11 elderly men after temporarily or officially marrying them; Iranian authorities have linked her to additional marriages and possible further victims.

Tennessee set to execute Anthony Darrell Hines

Barring any last-minute interventions, the Tennessee Department of Correction will execute Anthony Darrell Hines by lethal injection at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville Thursday morning. This week, two courts had the opportunity to halt the execution: the federal court in Middle Tennessee and the U.S. Supreme Court. Gov. Bill Lee announced Tuesday he personally would not prevent the execution. “After deliberate consideration of Anthony Darrell Hines’ request for clemency, and after a thorough review of the case, I am upholding the sentence of the State of Tennessee and do not plan to intervene,” he said in a written statement. The U.S. Supreme Court has not granted a stay or reprieve.

Oklahoma executes Carlos Cuesta-Rodriguez

Oklahoma has carried out 1 of 3 executions set for the same day in the United States in another sign of the resurgence of the death penalty in the country. Carlos Cuesta-Rodriguez was pronounced dead at 10:13 a.m. on Thursday, Aug. 13, at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester. He was put to death by lethal injection for the murder of his common-law wife in 2003 at their Oklahoma City home. He admitted to police he shot her twice during an argument. Cuesta-Rodriguez, 70, did not fight for his life, stunning his attorneys in July when he told the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board that he didn't want clemency. "It's time for me to pay for what I did," he said.

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine issues three death penalty reprieves

COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) – Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine issued execution reprieves for three death row inmates on Friday. In a statement, DeWine said he issued reprieves for Keith LaMar, Scott Group, and Davel Chinn, all of whom were set to be executed early next year. LaMar was scheduled to be executed on Jan. 13, 2027. He was convicted of aggravated murder for the deaths of five inmates during a 1993 riot at the Southern Ohio Correctional Institution in Lucasville. He received the death penalty for four of the killings. His new execution date is Jan. 13, 2030. Watch the latest NBC4 headlines in the video player above.

Arizona prosecutors seek death penalty a second time for 2 inmates

County Attorney Brad Miller said Aug. 6 that the nature of the attack and both men's past criminal records meet the strict legal bar required for execution under Arizona law. FLORENCE, Ariz. - Pinal County prosecutors are seeking the death penalty against two inmates accused of violently killing a fellow prisoner behind bars, officials announced Thursday. Pinal County Attorney Brad Miller filed a Notice of Intent to Seek the Death Penalty against Pete Van Winkle and Tracy Hampton in connection with the fatal attack on Kenneth Thompson.

Iran’s War on Women: Executions, Floggings, and the Politics of Fear

The Iranian regime is increasingly using death sentences, corporal punishment, and judicial persecution against women—not only to silence dissent but also to intimidate a society demanding change. The Iranian regime has long viewed women as central to the country’s struggle for freedom—and therefore as central targets of repression. The nationwide uprising of 2022 fundamentally altered the political landscape, demonstrating that Iranian women were no longer merely participants in protest movements but among their principal organizers and symbols. Since then, the authorities have steadily intensified their campaign against women, expanding the use of executions, imprisonment, corporal punishment, and judicial intimidation.

Death Penalty News

Search This Blog