«Christian vision» published new details about the case of Catholic priest Henrykh Akalatovich, who was released several months ago. According to the resource, the information comes from former political prisoners who were held alongside the priest in pretrial detention and later in prison.
Akalatovich was detained at a cemetery. According to the report, the KGB lured him there by deception. He received a phone call informing him that a woman had died and needed to be buried according to the Catholic rite. When the priest arrived at a cemetery near Valozhyn, he was met by men in plain clothes.
“He approached and asked, ‘Where is the coffin? Who is to be buried?’ They replied, ‘There is nothing here. You came here for a different purpose,'” the resource wrote.
The priest was handcuffed and a black hood was placed over his head. At the same time, two of his parishioners — a man and a woman — were detained and spent about nine months in the KGB pretrial detention center. Investigators sought testimony from them about the priest’s alleged meetings with foreign diplomats.
According to the report, the investigator told him directly: “If you really loved your flock, you would sign a confession. They are imprisoned because of you.”
By that time, Akalatovich had allegedly been under surveillance for a long period, while his parish house in Valozhyn and his parents’ home in the village of Novaya Mysh had been under round-the-clock audio surveillance. However, investigators reportedly found no evidence of espionage.
Akalatovich was accused of somehow redirecting aircraft of the Russian and Belarusian air forces and causing damage amounting to one million euros. At the time of his arrest, about 270,000 euros — mostly parish funds — were confiscated. The amount was credited toward the alleged damages, while the remaining balance was to be paid in Belarusian rubles.
According to the authors, experts from the Academy of National Security participated in the proceedings, all testifying anonymously under fictitious identities.
“KGB officers themselves, when visiting the priest in prison, did not hide the absurdity of what was happening. ‘You understand yourself that you have as much to do with these planes and the one million euros as I do with ballet,’ they told him. Then they immediately presented him with documents to sign.
The investigator — whom a former political prisoner recalls as a KGB lieutenant colonel whose surname he can barely remember (‘something like Marat Kazei,’ he said, referring to the well-known Belarusian Soviet child hero) — put the system’s logic even more bluntly: ‘We could build a case against Jesus Christ himself in half an hour,'” the resource wrote.
The authors believe the investigator was most likely Aliaksandr Uladzimiravich Kazeyeu, a 38-year-old KGB investigator who is believed to have led the case against Henrykh Akalatovich.
According to the report, the KGB made provocation a condition for the priest’s release. Under the plan, after returning home he was to secretly pass a flash drive containing compromising material to the Vatican’s apostolic nuncio in order to create grounds for discrediting the diplomat. The alleged plan referred to the period when Ante Jozić served as apostolic nuncio to Belarus. Similar scenarios were reportedly proposed involving other foreign diplomats, primarily Polish ones. The priest refused.
“I am entirely devoted to God’s work in the Church. What you are asking me to do is a crime. I cannot betray God,” his cellmate quoted him as saying.
Before one of the political prisoners was released, Akalatovich asked him: “Do everything you can to make sure the media learns about all this. (…) That is the only kind of pressure that can be applied.”
Akalatovich himself has remained silent. According to «Christian vision», this was a condition of his release.
The resource also published details of the case against priest Andrzej Juchniewicz. According to the report, other inmates were largely prevented from communicating with him because he had been assigned a “low status,” effectively leaving him in isolation. A former political prisoner recalled that the charges against Juchniewicz were based on an incident that allegedly occurred 10 years earlier. While serving in Shumilina, the priest had once taken an evening walk with a local woman while visiting his home region of Hrodna. At neither the time nor afterward did she file any complaint with the Catholic curia. According to the report, she later gave testimony under coercion alleging inappropriate advances and an attempted assault, but did not appear in court “for security reasons.” The authors say the conviction was based solely on her statement, without witnesses, independent observers or medical evidence.
In December 2024, Henrykh Akalatovich was sentenced to 11 years in prison on a charge of treason after being accused of “spying for Poland and the Vatican.” The sentence against Andrzej Juchniewicz was handed down in April 2025. He was sentenced to 13 years in prison. The previous year, the priest received 15 days in detention over white-red-white and Ukrainian flags on Facebook, followed by several additional administrative jail terms. He was not released after serving those sentences.
Henrykh Akalatovich and Andrzej Juchniewicz were “pardoned” by decision of Lukashenka in November last year. After their release, they left for Rome.
