MINSK, August 31. /TASS/. Belarusian investigators are pushing ahead with the probe into the case over suspected attempts to incite mass unrest, in which 33 Russian citizens were originally detained, including 32 individuals later handed over to Russia, the Belarusian Prosecutor General’s Office told TASS on Monday.
"Preliminary investigation is in progress. The Investigative Committee of Belarus is in charge," the prosecutor’s office said.
On July 29, Belarus detained 33 Russian citizens. Minsk said they were all members of a private military company. The Belarusian Investigative Committee said they were charged with involvement in attempts to stage mass unrest and would be tried under the same case as Sergei Tikhanovsky (husband of presidential candidate Svetlana Tikhanovskaya) and Nikolai Statkevich (Belarusian opposition activist). Russian Presidential Spokesman Dmitry Peskov dismissed the speculations that Moscow might have sent somebody to Belarus for destabilizing the situation as insinuations.
On August 14, the Russian Prosecutor General’s Office said that on the basis of a request from Prosecutor General Igor Krasnov, filed on August 5, 32 Russian citizens, earlier detained in Belarus, were allowed to leave for Russia in accordance with the Minsk Convention on legal assistance and legal relations in civil, family and criminal cases as of January 22, 1993. One Russian citizen, who has Belarusian citizenship, has remained in Belarus.