MINSK, 30 July (BelTA) – Following the meeting chaired by Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko, journalist Lyudmila Gladkaya told her fellow reporters that the German authorities simply deserted their citizen Rico Krieger, who was sentenced to death in Belarus, and they may even be interested in the execution of the death sentence, BelTA has learned.
According to Lyudmila Gladkaya, just a few minutes after the death sentence was handed down, German diplomats left the courtroom and were seen hugging each other with smiling faces. “They were back-patting each other, smiling... It felt so odd to me. I was thinking to myself: a citizen of your country has been sentenced to death (no matter how terrible his crimes were), and you are smiling... And I also got the impression that these people probably could not care less about it (since we are not hearing any reaction or statements from the German authorities). So they just turned their back on the citizen of their country,” the journalist said.
“No matter what crimes this person has committed, he is a citizen of your country. After all, it is your duty, you should at least try help him in some way, do some reaching out, just anything. None of that was done. And at some point I even caught myself thinking: maybe they want the death sentence to be carried out?” Lyudmila Gladkaya remarked.
She assumes that there is no one to defend this person. “So here he is, he is turning to the president asking for pardon. He understands that it is pointless to appeal to the authorities of his country,” said the journalist. “It does not matter where he is from and what he did, our president tries to thoroughly look into any situation. That is why all kinds of things have been discussed in detail today.”
“Of course, I am fully aware that these are very serious crimes, there is absolutely no excuse for them. And while I was sitting in the courtroom, I simply could not fathom how a person in his right mind would do such a thing. This is a heinous crime - a terrorist attack. On the other hand, having seen that he was abandoned, I felt kind of sorry for him as a human being, as a woman,” said Lyudmila Gladkaya.
“It is up to the president to make a decision. This decision will be very hard to make. I am sure that he, as always, will do the right thing,” said the journalist.
Lyudmila Gladkaya shared another observation from the trial. She was surprised that some people tried to play down the gravity of the crime just because the damage caused by the German citizen was not big.
“This is a serious, horrible crime. It's true, the damage was not big if we look at it from the financial perspective. But what if the train arrived a minute after the explosion? What if the explosion occurred when the train was arriving?” the journalist asked.
By the way, the evidence voiced in court put a smile on the face of the German diplomats. “That was how representatives of the consulate were behaving in court. For some reason they were amused by what they were hearing and kept smiling,” Lyudmila Gladkaya said.
A reminder, on 30 July Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko met with people who are privy to the case of the convicted German citizen. The president wanted to discuss Rico Krieger's death sentence taking into account his plea for pardon. The meeting was attended by KGB Chairman Ivan Tertel, Deputy Head of the Belarus President Administration Olga Chupris, the investigator in the case, Deputy Head of the KGB Investigative Department Aleksandr Grib, Rico Krieger's lawyer Vladimir Gorbach and journalist Lyudmila Gladkaya who covered the trial.
A reminder, Rico Krieger was found guilty of an act of terrorism, clandestine intelligence activities, mercenarism, creation of an extremist formation or participation in it, storing and carrying explosives and explosive devices, as part of an organized group, intentional damage to communication routes, which could result in a human casualty, wreck, accident and other serious consequences. For multiple crimes, he was sentenced to death.
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