A German man sentenced to death by a Belarus court was made to beg for his life on state television, prompting Berlin to urge Minsk to stop ‘parading’ detainees.
Rico Krieger, 30, was convicted under six articles of Belarus’s criminal code in a secretive trial held at the end of June, the Viasna Human Rights Centre reported.
Appearing on Belarusian public television in handcuffs and behind bars, he said: ‘I really hope that President (Alexander) Lukashenko will forgive me and pardon me,’ according to a statement quoted by the Russian news agency TASS.
German foreign ministry spokeswoman Kathrin Deschauer said on Friday that ‘it is unfortunately common practice in Belarus to present people in videos or on television like this and we are of course very concerned that being paraded in this way massively violates that person’s dignity’.
‘We can only appeal to the Belarusian leadership to stop this practice,’ she told reporters.
Rico Krieger, 30, pictured, appeared on Belarus state television to beg for his life
German foreign ministry spokeswoman Kathrin Deschauer pleaded with Minsk to stop ‘parading’ detainees such as
‘We have been providing the detainee in question with consular services and are very concerned about his case,’ Deschauer said, adding that ‘we as a government fundamentally reject the death penalty under all circumstances’.
Mr Krieger revealed how he had been asked by Ukraine to photograph military sites in Belarus in October 2023 and that he had placed an explosive device on a railway line near Minsk under their orders.
‘I deeply regret what I did and I am relieved that there were no victims,’ he added, claiming that he had been ‘abandoned’ by the German government.
According to a LinkedIn profile that Viasna said belonged to Krieger, he worked as a medic for the German Red Cross and had previously been employed as an armed security officer for the US embassy in Berlin.
Belarus is reported to have executed as many as 400 people since it gained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, according to Amnesty International, but executions of foreign citizens are rare.
The country is run as an authoritarian regime by long-time leader Lukashenko, who has detained thousands of dissidents and civic activists who oppose him.
Vladimir Putin pictured with Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko, right, during a meeting of the Union State Supreme Council in St. Petersburg, Russia, earlier this year
Krieger’s case comes after China and Belarus held military drills near the Polish border earlier this month.
The manoeuvres, seemingly timed to coincide with the 76th anniversary NATO summit, offered a disturbing indication of Beijing’s affiliations.
In the face of international condemnation, China has continued to back Russia’s occupation of Ukraine by providing parts and technologies used to make missiles, tanks and aircraft.
Now it has sent elite troops to Russia’s neighbour and ally in the conflict in Ukraine, Belarus.
It came hours after a Russian missile strike on the Ohmatdyt Children’s Hospital which killed two adults.
