Lukashenko 'plotted assassinations' of opponents in Europe

Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko plotted to assassinate opponents who had fled to the EU, a report has alleged.

A recording published by the EUobserver website purports to show the former head of Belarus’s spy agency telling officers that Mr Lukashenko was “waiting for operations” to target enemies in Germany.

Ex-KGB head Vadim Zaitsev is allegedly heard discussing the use of explosives and poisons to take out a former prison director, army colonel and anti-corruption chief, in what the website said were leaked recordings from 2012.

Mr Lukashenko had put some £1.2 million into a “dedicated account” for such operations and wanted to “see some results,” according to the voice on the tapes.

None of those murders took place, but a Belarusian-born journalist also discussed in the recordings later died in a car bomb attack in Ukraine. Mr Lukashenko has previously been accused by whistleblowers of ordering the killing of political enemies.

The EUobserver said it had been given the tapes by Belarusian opposition activist Igor Makar, a former special forces officer.

Mr Makar, who now lives in hiding in Europe, said that contacts in the security service leaked the recording to him in 2012.

He said he played the recordings to an American diplomat in the EU at the time, but said he decided to go public now in a show of solidarity with ongoing protests against Mr Lukashenko’s regime.

The website published an extended excerpt of the tape, along with a transcription from the meeting between Mr Zaitsev and agents in Belarus’s elite counter-terrorism unit.

Experts said the voice on the tape did appear to be that of Mr Zaitsev, and did not find any obvious trace of audio-manipulation on the file.

However forensic examination of the file was inconclusive, according to the website. The file had been edited at least once, possibly to protect the identity of the KGB mole, a media forensics expert told EUobserver.

“It’s important to me that no one even thinks about the KGB,” the voice alleged to belong to Mr Zaitsev says at one point in the tape.

"It's clear how we could drown or shoot someone. It's clear. But how to initiate a chance explosion, how to start arson and not leave traces, murder, and stuff like that - this is unclear," the voice said.

At another point the same voice describes the journalist Pavel Sheremet as a “massive pain in the a***” and discusses planting a bomb on him that would blow his “legs in one direction, arms in the other direction.”

Mr Sheremet was killed in Kiev in 2016, and investigations into his car bombing have proved inconclusive.

The EU slapped sanctions on Mr Lukashenko, who has ruled the ex-Soviet nation with an iron fist for 24 years, over police violence in response to a protest movement against his regime.

Demonstrations broke out last summer after the dictator claimed victory in rigged presidential polls. Several people have died in the protests and many more have complained of torture while in police custody.

Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, the leader of the opposition, fled to neighbouring Lithuania after apparent threats to her children, while prominent opposition politician Maria Kolesnikova said security officers threatened to kill her.

The Belarusian presidency did not respond to a Telegraph request for comment on the recordings. A similar request to the Belarusian broadcaster Cosmos TV, which Mr Zaitsev has headed since leaving the KGB in 2012, went unanswered.

An unnamed Belarusian diplomat in Brussels accused the EUobserver of “campaigning in favour of certain (opposition) activists”.