President Alexander Lukashenko

BELARUS: PRESIDENT LUKASHENKO DENIES CLEMENCY TO TWO DEATH ROW INMATES

February 25, 2011: Belarusian president Alyaksandr Lukashenko rejected clemency requests from death row inmates Aleh Hryshkawtsow, 29, and Andrey Burdyka, 28, according to Belarusian human right defenders. They were were sentenced to death by the Hrodna Regional Court on May 14, 2010, for an alleged triple murder in October 2009.
Burdyka and Hryshkawtsow, who had previous convictions, were found to have robbed an apartment in Hrodna in October 2009, killing one man and two women and taking a child hostage. They reportedly set fire to the apartment and then forced a taxi driver to drive them to Minsk or Moscow, but were arrested the following morning when the taxi driver escaped.
On 17 September, the Supreme Court of Belarus rejected appeals against the death sentences.
In their appeals, Burdyka and Hryshkawtsow argued that investigators had violated procedural regulations and the International Covenant on Civic and Political Rights, using illegal methods to obtain confessions. In addition, both Burdyka and Hryshkawtsow insisted that they had murdered only one person and blamed the other two murders on each other.
The two men are currently held in the detention centre on Minsk's Valadarskaha Street. (Sources: BBC, 25/02/2011)