30 people suspected of a sabotage attack on Russia’s A-50 spy plane could face death penalty in Belarus

30 people detained in Belarus could face the death penalty after being detained in connection with the sabotage attack on Russia’s A-50 spy plane.

During his address last Friday, March 31, to the National Assembly and the citizens of Belarus, President Aleksandr Lukashenko revealed that 30 suspects had been detained in connection with the sabotage attempt on Russia’s A-50 spy plane while it was parked in the country on Sunday, February 25.

Lukashenko praised his security forces, commenting: “The operation to detain the foreign saboteur was carried out brilliantly and foreign colleagues admire the Belarusian special services. It was a brilliant operation. It will be in textbooks. We quickly found this saboteur and everyone who helped him. Today, there are 30 scoundrels in the dungeons”.

Prior to the attack, the leader claimed that the security forces had located the place from where the drones were likely to be launched for the attack. After the incident, his teams also found a bag, control panels, interactive glasses, and a repeater thrown by the suspect he detailed. On March 7, the KGB of Belarus stated that Ukrainian special services operatives were involved in the incident.

On March 11, Gennady Kazakevich, the Deputy Head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Republic of Belarus, said that the operation to prevent the terrorist attack took place in close cooperation with the KGB and the Ministry of Defence of Belarus. The area where the crime was committed was blocked – not only the airport, but also the settlement nearby.

Lukashenko noted on the same day that the A-50: “did not suffer any significant damage, except for scratches, and one hole in the hull, which does not prevent the military aircraft from performing its duties”. He also expressed the opinion that: “such operations are not carried out without the consent of the head of the country and its commander in chief”.

Speaking about the event later, Mikhail Podolyak, an adviser to the head of the office of the President of Ukraine, said that ‘local partisans’ staged an attempt to attack the plane at the Machulishchi air base.

Amendments to the Criminal Code came into force in Belarus on March 25, introducing the death penalty for civil servants and the military for treason.

Only men from 18 to 65 years old can be executed in Belarus- by shooting. It is the only country in Europe and the CIS where the death penalty is applied. From 1990 to 2021, more than 400 people were executed in the republic. Basically, people are sentenced to death in Belarus for murder or terrorism.

The unleashing of a war of aggression, genocide, the use of weapons of mass destruction, the killing of prisoners of war, treason involving murder, the seizure of power by unconstitutional means with the death of people, sabotage with grave consequences, or the murder of a security official, can also lead to capital punishment.

At the same time, none of these articles of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Belarus requires the mandatory death penalty, as reported by gazeta.ru.

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