ITALY-BELARUS: RADICALS- DEATH SENTENCE TEST CASE OF THE ‘GOOD RELATIONS’ BETWEEN THE TWO COUNTRIES

October 20, 2009: together with other elected Radical parliamentarians from the Democratic Party list, Elisabetta Zamparutti presented an urgent parliamentary question to the Ministers of Foreign Affairs regarding the case of Vasil Yuzepchuk.
Yuzepchuk, a 30 year old gypsy, is at risk of execution in Belarus for the murder of six elderly women. A detailed article by Sergio D’Elia, Hands Off Cain Secretary, as reported today in the newspaper ‘Europa’, it explained that the Belarusian Supreme Court confirmed Yuzepchuk’s death sentence on October 2nd, after a “trial that was anything but fair.”
On October 13, President Aleksandr Lukashenko refused to grant him a pardon and now Yuzepchuk risks being executed at any moment.
The parliamentary question, to which the Government will respond tomorrow, was also signed by Antonello Soro, Chamber leader of the Democratic Party.
Recalling the recent visit to Minsk by the Foreign Affairs Minister Frattini, it asks for another visit to reinforce bilateral relations between Italy and Lukashenko’s Belarus.
Lukashenko has been described by critics as “the last dictator of the Old Continent, who, since taking power in 1994, has applied the death penalty hundreds of times and shown clemency only once.” In Belarus, executions are carried out by a shot to the head with a pistol, a practice remaining unchanged from the Soviet Union era.
Regarding the innocence of Vasil Yuzepchuk, the signatories of the parliamentary question invite the Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Council of Ministers to consider the case as “a first, small but urgent, test case of the good relations between Rome and Minsk, of the credit given to the last European dictatorship who has promised to turn the page, and of good faith to a president that, after four hundred executions and only one pardon, says he is ready to change.”
Lastly, the parliamentarians ask the Foreign Affairs Minister which initiatives have been undertaken to beg for Vasil Yuzepchuk’s life and what actions the Government has promised or intends to promote so that Belarus respects the Resolution for the universal moratorium on the capital punishment, promoted by Italy and approved by the United Nations in December 2007. (Sources: HOC, 21/10/2009)