MINSK, 17 December (BelTA) – A soldier of the Polish Armed Forces Emil Czeczko who asked for political asylum in Belarus told the Belarus 1 TV channel why he decided to do it, BelTA has learned.
“I deserted the army through the barbed wire, tore my pants, injured my arm, ran across the no-go zone and saw that a Polish patrol was on the way. I took off my uniform and ran without clothes towards Belarus in a roundabout way. I decided to leave the Polish army this way, because it is impossible to keep silent about what is happening on the territory of Poland,” Emil Czeczko said.
According to him, he does not support the policy of his state. “I was sitting by the fire doing nothing and was thinking about what had been happening in these forests in recent months. When we just arrived, we were told that we would be deployed near the border posts. At some point, people from counterintelligence began to arrive. They were just there. Sometimes they would pick up on soldiers so that they got used to aggression towards them. If a soldier wanted to go out, they checked his documents for no reason, told him stupid things, although they understood that he could not answer back - a typical demonstration of superiority,” the soldier said.
“They have done everything to ensure that no soldier escapes. They will try to hush up this case, to make me the worst person out there. They would say that I was a troublemaker in the army or that I died altogether. It's obvious," Emil Czeczko added.
A reminder, the State Border Committee informed that a soldier of the Polish Armed Forces Emil Czeczko, born 1996, was stopped by a Belarusian border guard unit in the no-go zone at the Tushemlya border outpost of the Grodno border group at 17.50 on 16 December. The man said that he is a soldier of the 11th Masurian Artillery Regiment of the 16th Pomeranian Mechanized Division named after King Casimir, the units of which were redeployed to ensure the protection of the border with Belarus during the state of emergency imposed in the frontier areas of Poland. The soldier said he decided to seek political asylum in Belarus as he opposes Poland's handling of the migrant crisis and the inhumane treatment of refugees, the State Border Committee added.
