Belarus’ Prosecutor General’s Office will send the eighth criminal case separated from its main investigation into the alleged genocide of the Belarusian people during World War II to the Supreme Court within a month. Valer Taukachou, head of the investigative team, announced the plans during the “Country Speaks” program, BelTA reported.
The new case concerns Belarusian national Aliaksandr Buhlai.
“Aliaksandr Ivanavich Buhlai voluntarily joined the Polish Army in 1929. In 1935, he was recruited by Polish intelligence to conduct espionage in the USSR. After the reunification of Western and Eastern Belarus in October 1939, he was arrested by the NKVD of the Belarusian SSR but escaped. At the beginning of the war, he voluntarily entered the service of the Nazis. From July 16, 1941, he commanded a paramilitary unit, and from November 1941, a unit attached to the Homiel Field Gendarmerie. Until May 1944, he led the so-called Buhlai Volunteer Combat Battalion and, being a Belarusian himself, took part in the destruction of his own people,” Taukachou said.
The draft indictment outlines 29 episodes of alleged criminal activity, including the destruction of villages in the Homiel, Mahilyow and Minsk regions and the killing of hundreds of people.
Previously, Belarusian courts issued posthumous verdicts in genocide cases against Uladzimir Katriuk, Kanstantsin Smouski, Syamon Serafimovich, Osip Vinnitski, Aliaksandr Yarmolchyk, Hans Siegling and Antanas Geciavicius.
