English

Mother appeals to Lukashenka to pardon Kavalyow

 

The mother of Uladzislaw Kavalyow, who was sentenced together with his friend Dzmitry Kanavalaw to death in the subway bombing trial on November 30, delivered Thursday an appeal to the Presidential Administration, urging Alyaksandr Lukashenka to pardon her son.

In her appeal, Lyubow Kavalyow says that her son “could never commit such a horrible crime.”

“I urge you to remember that there were instances in the history of Belarus where innocent people were sentenced to execution by shooting, with the real culprits found only several years later,” the woman says.

She asks Mr. Lukashenka to introduce a moratorium on the death penalty to show that Belarus is a “civilized country.”

“You know better than anyone else how it is difficult to govern a country and maintain calm in a big family,” she says. “But a wise father not only punishes but also shows mercy so that the family could continue to gather together around their table and respect their parents.”

Referring to Mr. Lukashenka as an advocate of Christian moral values, Ms. Kavalyow urges him to remember that "only God can give and take life.”

Journalists accompanied Ms. Kavalyow to the Presidential Administration. When the crowd stopped in front of it to hear the woman’s appeal, Ihar Yawseyew, deputy chief of the city police department, appeared. He asked the people to move on in order not to “disrupt” pedestrian traffic.

After delivering the appeal, the woman filed an application for a personal meeting with the Belarusian leader.
After that, she headed to the Supreme Court to submit an application for a meeting with her son, whom she may still be allowed to see before his execution.

Ms. Kavalyow told reporters that she was allowed to see her son only once, on September 9, following his arrest in April.

She said that she received only two letters and one postcard from him since his trial began in mid-September. The family’s letters never reached Mr. Kavalyow, according to her.

When asked what she would have said to Mr. Lukashenka if she had met him right now, Ms. Kavalyow said, “I think that I could have found the most important words. I would have talked to him as a father first and only then as the head of state.”

A police officer with a video camera followed Ms. Kavalyow and journalists to the Presidential Administration and then to the Supreme Court.

As a result of their trial held between September 15 and November 30, Messrs. Kanavalaw and Kavalyow were convicted of the two 2005 bomb explosions in Vitsyebsk, the bomb attack that occurred during an open-air Independence Day concert in Minsk in July 2008 and the April 11, 2011 subway bombing that killed 15 people and injured more than 200. Mr. Kanavalaw was found guilty of perpetrating them, while Mr. Kavalyow of acting as his accomplice, as well as of failure to report the crimes or their preparation.

Mr. Kanavalaw had denied involvement in the bomb explosions in Vitsyebsk, while Mr. Kavalyow denied his complicity in all the bomb attacks.

The two men were arrested a day after the attack.