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Two perpetrators of Minsk metro terror act executed

The death sentences passed on Konovalov and Kovalev have been carried out, the Belarusian television reported

Photo EPA/ITAR-TASS

Photo EPA/ITAR-TASS

MINSK, March 18 (Itar-Tass) — Dmitry Konovalov, the main perpetrator of a terrorist act in the Minsk metro last April, has been executed. His accomplice, Vladislav Kovalev, was executed a day earlier. His mother received a notification about her son’s execution from the Supreme Court dated March 16.

“The death sentences passed on Dmitry Konovalov and Vladislav Kovalev have been carried out,” the Belarusian television reported in an evening news program on Saturday.

The terrorist act in the Minsk metro took place on April 11, 2011. Fifteen people were killed and over two hundred were injured. The Supreme Court of Belarus sentenced Dmitry Konovalov to death on charges of staging an explosion in the Minsk metro. Vladislav Kovalev also received a death penalty for sympathizing with terrorism. Both men were sentenced on November 30, 2011.

At the trial Konovalov pleaded guilty of staging two terrorist acts in the Belarusian capital: at a metro station on April 11, 2011 and during Independence Day celebrations on July 4, 2008.

Vladislav Kovalev, on the contrary, didn’t plead guilty and refused to recognize he was an accomplice in the Minsk metro bombing. He denied the evidence given at a preliminary hearing which he said he had given under pressure.

Kovalev appealed for clemency to Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko.

On March 14, it became known that the president had refused to pardon Kovalev and Konovalov.

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