Alyaksandar Lukashenka, who won the 2020 Belarusian presidential election according to the results of the country’s Central Election Commission, has signed a law that would make attempted acts of terrorism punishable by death. The document was published on Wednesday on the Belarusian legal information portal, Russian state news agency TASS reports.
According to the new law, capital punishment can now be introduced for attempts to commit or plan acts of terrorism. Convicts may also face the death penalty for planning an assassination of a state official or a public figure with the aim of influencing the country’s government bodies or intimidating the population.
Zerkalo.io news portal informs that suspects in the case of attempted sabotage on Belarusian railways were charged with committing an act of terrorism. According to the prosecution, they may have been involved in the destruction of railway signal boxes. These incidents became more common after the start of the war in Ukraine, when the BYPOL initiative called on Belarusians to block railways transporting Russian military convoys.
Besides, criminal cases on attempted acts of terrorism were opened against a number of Belarusian opposition figures, including 2020 presidential candidate Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya and former Minister of Culture Pavel Latushka.
Belarus is the only country in Europe that still has the death penalty.
