Rights defender demanding apologies from KGB for failing to return seized items

Human rights defender Aleh Volchak has demanded apologies from the Committee for State Security (KGB) for failing to return seized items and breaking his computer. 

KGB officers seized the computer, a voice recorder, walkie-talkies, CDs, DVDs, books, and a hunting rifle that belongs to Mr. Volchak's landlord on December 25, 2010 while searching his home in connection with a criminal investigation into the December 19, 2010 post-election protest in Minsk. 

"At the beginning of summer, Andrey Darashevich, a KGB investigator who conducted the search, returned the computer, the voice recorder and the walkie-talkies to me," Mr. Volchak told BelaPAN. "He promised that I would get the other things back later. Five months have passed, but he hasn't kept the promise." 

In his letter to Uladzimir Kalach, chief of the KGB office in Minsk and the Minsk region, Mr. Volchak notifies the colonel that despite checking his computer during the search and concluding that is was in working order, KGB officers returned it broken. 

He points out that the investigation into the December 19 protest was completed several months ago, and that people charged in the so-called riot case have stood trial, which is why there is no reason to withhold seized items from him and other people.