Discrepancies around Aleh Biabenin's death
Friends and colleagues indicate at the details that contradict the official version.The prosecutor’s office has already announced the official version about a suicide, but they assure it is not a final conclusion.
“We have not said that we have put a period. Everything is still probed into, suicide and other leads. If it was a suicide, its reasons and motives are looked into. We will inform about the results,” RFE/RL was told by the spokesperson of the regional prosecutor’s office Tatsiana Kalinina.
Zmitser Bandarenka, a coordinator of the “European Belarus” civil campaign, have been working in one team with Aleh Biabenin for many years and is an old friend of his. On 3 September in the evening Zmitser Bandarenka was among the people who came to the village of Piarkhurava to the summer house of Mr. Biabenin, when the news about his death arrived. Now Zmitser Bandarenka is surprised that the group of investigators had not lifted fingerprints form surfaces in the house; the house was not sealed up, as well as the car, in which the journalist could arrive, or he could be got there. Bandarenka and his friends have even more questions after seeing of the body of the deceased.
“Everybody noticed that when Aleh’s body was standing in the noose, the right ankle-joint was either broken or dislocated.
When the deputy prosecutor was asked a question about that, he said most likely Aleh injured the leg when he jumped from the stool. The deputy prosecutor added that his neck bones are most likely to be broken then. I saw the body after post-mortem as well and attracted attention of the expert that the right ankle joint was injured visibly more than the left one. The expert said: no, he was standing mostly on this leg, and it is caused by rigor mortis. The expert has also said that there was no injuring of neck bones and ligaments. It was a mild asphyxia. And it was said by the same expert who said Aleh died on 2 September. But when we were at the crime scene (on 3, September at 7 p.m.), both the policeman and the deputy prosecutor said: look, he is still warm, the death occurred not long before. And the body really was supple, there was no cadaveric rigidity. It means, the stories of the expert and the deputy prosecutor do not match,” Zmitser Bandarenka said to RFE/RL.
As said by Bandarenka, it is not true that there were no strange marks on Aleh Biabenin’s body, which could be considered a result of external action. Bandarenka speaks about a cut on the finger and abrasion of skin on the knuckles of the left fist, as well as scratches at the chest. On the back of the deceased bruises were found in the area of the left kidney and on the neck. Bandarenka recalls that he was in sauna with Biabenin many times and does not remember seeing such marks on his body there.
