Witness in Haidukou case faces dismissal

Illia Bahdanau has been warned that June 27 will be the last of his working day, the Nasha Niva newspaper reports.

“Just an hour ago I was informed about that by the head of the legal department. They did not name the reason. The order will only come tomorrow: then I’ll learn about the grounds. Although my contract expires next year,” says he.

Illia Bahdanau works as a legal advisor at the legal department of the Navapolatsk public utilities. He did not write any applications for dismissal, so he does not understand how he could be so quick to be dismissed.

Yet, Illia Bahdanau notes that there previously was an attempt to get rid of him. “It was in the winter, a month after the arrest of Haidukou. I was warned that I would be fired because a lawyer in whose place I had been working was going to go back to work after a maternity leave. But her child was only 1.5 years old. As a result, she did not come out and my dismissal did not happen,” says Illia Bahdanau.

Illia Bahdanau was a witness in the case of Andrei Haidukou, who was charged with high treason through intelligence activities. Previously, he had a different status, a suspect. Last week, he was questioned at the trial.

“For me, this connection is obvious,” says Illia Bahdanau of his dismissal and the case of Haidukou.

Andrei Haidukou’s associate, Yauhen Kanstantsinau, lost his job in November, after they tried to register the Union of Young Intellectuals.