KGB arrests 3 people for Vitsebsk blast (updated)

14.03 Murashka brothers not detained for Vitsebsk KGB blast

The law enforcement officials have not visited the apartment where the elder brother lives.

Murashka brothers' mother Valyantsina has told Euroradio that no one visited them, and her sons are at work. She has found out about the blast from the Internet.

Valyantsina Murashka: "No one came, or detained, there was nothing of the kind. They usually come. Even when there was a blast in Minsk (July 3) they came at 3 a.m. to check my boys, and today there was nothing".

Previously, Murashka brothers were detained and accused of the blasts in Vitsebsk in 2005. They were released and rehabilitated after 6 months in the pre-trial detention center.

Vital Murashka did not walk into the city alone, he bought everything from the sellers he knew, collected all bills and left the city with a big company of friends on holidays. This is how he granted his alibi. The police visited him after the blast of any fireworks.

Vital has confessed this to Euroradio after the sentence to Kanavalau and Kavalyou had been pronounced:

"I have been under a great psychological pressure throughout all these years. I was afraid to appear in the city where there was a big crowd, alone, with no witnesses. I collected the bills (you will probably laugh) from the shops where I bought anything. I tried to buy things from the sellers who knew me personally. This has played its role - when the police came to me after the blast in Minsk on July 3, 2008 I had an alibi - I was buying something in a kiosk across the road. As for the holidays - May 9, Independence Day, New Year - this is awful! I tried to leave the city with a company of no less than 10 people, so that everything was good".

11.43 Some inhabitants of the building next to the Vitsebsk KGB even thought that the war had started.

Human right defender from the Belarusian Helsinki Committee Pavel Levinau has told Euroradio about this.

Levinau: "I managed to talk to the inhabitants of the house who live on the ground floor. They told me it was a horrible blast, the blast wave reached their windows but the windows survived. An elderly lady even said she thought that the war had started".

The HR defender found out nothing about the three people detained for the blast. Levinau says he tried to appoint a meeting with the local KGB administration in order to find out whether the detainees needed legal or medical aid, but in vain.

10.37. KGB arrests 3 people for Vitsebsk blast

The official message at the KGB web-site states that a blast occurred near the office of the Vitsebsk KGB administration at about 7 p.m. It was a primitive self-made pyrotechnical device. The blast damaged two windows in the building.

According to preliminary evaluation, it was a tube made of cardboard paper or plastic with 50-70 pyrotechnical mixture inside, placed into a 0,25-0,33 liters can with no striking elements.

Three people have already been detained in this case. According to the KGB, one of the detainees has external symptoms of deviation behaviour and used to call the KGB with inappropriate statements about the authorities.

A criminal case has been started with regard to the blast - Article 339 of the Criminal Code (hooliganism).

9.42 No one is allowed to approach the KGB office in Vitsebsk.

Vitsebsk HR defender Pavel Levinau has told this Euroradio. According to him, the territory in front of the KGB office is sealed by policemen. No one is allowed to approach the building, apart from the KGB members after they show their official certificates.

Levinau: "They have not admitted even a post car which used to park at the entrance. Today the postman ran to the building by foot, with the mail".

According to Levinau, there is a crime scene tape around the right wing of the building. However, it is impossible to see whether there is any damage.

The social networking web-sites inform about a great number of detained Vitsebsk inhabitants - around 50 people. However, the human rights defender says he hasn't noticed many detainees in the district police department. If there were more than 10 people it would have been obvious, Levinau says.

9.15. Vitsebsk branch of the Ministry for Emergency Situations: We know nothing about the blast.

There has been no official information on the night incident near the KGB building in Vitsebsk yet.

"We didn't go anyway and can give you know information in this regard. Call the KGB," - they told Euroradio correspondent in the Vitsebsk regional administration of the Ministry for Emergency Situations. 

The KGB does not confirm this information either. Information about the incident appeared on social networking sites around 2 a.m. on Monday. Vitsebsk inhabitants inform that a part of the building occupied by the special services and located in Savetskaya Street, 18 has been sealed by crime scene tapes.

There is also information about detentions. Vitsebsk HR defender Pavel Levinau informs that the detainees are standing near the KGB office, their faces to the wall, right in the street. 

Information about an incident appeared on social networking sites around 2 a.m. on Monday.

The posts on Facebook suggested that an explosion took place near the regional office of Belarus' security service, KGB, and male by-passers in hooked black jackets were being detained by security agents and the police.

Local rights activist Pavel Levinau reports that around 3.40 a.m. he saw crime scene tapes near the KGB building on Saveckaja street. A police bus was parked nearby, and lights were on in the windows. Several plainclothes agents could be seen in front of the building. Uniformed police sealed off the area. The activist spotted no visible damage to the building, reports Radio Svaboda.

The police refused to confirm or denounce any information about a possible incident.

Euroradio reminds that Dzmitry Kanavalau and Uladzislau Kavalyou were executed for bombing the Minsk metro station in 2011. In 2005 they were charged with several explosions in Vitsebsk.

Photo: KGB building in Vitsebsk by darriuss.livejournal.com