During its 104th Session end March 2012 the United Nations Human Rights Committee has adopted its decision on the case of enforced disappearance of Anatoly Krasovsky. The Committee concluded that Belarus failed to properly investigate and take adequate remedial actions regarding the disappearance of Mr. Krasovsky. The state of Belarus has 180 days to take appropriate measures.

On November 16, 2008 the suit on behalf of the involuntary disappeared Anatoly Krasovsky, Irina Krasovskaya and Valeriya Krasovskaya, his wife and daughter accordingly, was registered by the UN Human Rights Committee and its copy was sent to the defendant, the Republic of Belarus. The suit was prepared by the Dutch law firm Böhler. The document, together with the appendices, exceeded the volume of one thousand pages.

In their own name and on behalf of Anatoly Krasovsky, who was abducted on September 16, 1999, Irina and Valeriya Krasovskaya called upon the state of Belarus:

1) To immediately interrogate suspects in forcible abductions of Anatoly Krasvsky named in the Special Memorandum of the deputy of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe Christos Pourgourides;

2) To satisfy numerous requests of Anatoly Krasovsky’s family and international community to hold thorough investigation of Anatoly Krasovsky’s disappearance;

3) To identify and tell the name of Anatoly Krasovsky’s burial;

4) To compensate moral and material damages of Anatoly Krasovsky’s abduction’s victims.

The first strategy of the Belarusian authorities was to delay the process: the state party demanded that the suit and all its appendices to be translated into Russian (the original was in English). Upon the reception of the translation and more than after one year since the suit registration (thus going beyond the official term for defense) Belarus issued a reply. In this reply Belarus insisted on inadmissibility of the case on its merits. The reasoning of the state of Belarus was not considered sufficient by the Committee and so it proceeded with the case and adopted its decision.

The Committee concluded that the State of Belarus had violated its obligations to properly investigate and take appropriate remedial action regarding the disappearance of Mr. Krasovsky. The Committee obliged Belarus to provide the victims of the disappearance of Mr. Krasovsky with an effective remedy, including a thorough and diligent investigation of the disappearance, prosecution and punishment of the perpetrators. Further, the Committee obliged Belarus to provide adequate information concerning the results of the inquires to the authors of the complaint — Mrs. Irina Krasovskaya and Ms. Valeriya Krasovskaya. Finally, it obliged Belarus to provide the authors with an adequate compensation

The Committee wishes to receive from the state of Belarus, within 180 days, information about the measures taken in accordance with the decision of the Committee.

Businessman Anatoly Krasovsky disappeared together with his friend, a prominent politician, Viktor Gonchar, on on September 16, 1999. They were kidnapped from the sauna where they were together in the evening, by unidentified persons. The official agencies started investigating the case; however all known to date evidence has been collected by volunteers. That includes windscreen fragments of Mr. Krasovsky's car used by the friends that day found near the sauna building in Minsk, traces of blood identified as Mr. Gonchar’s by an independent expert examination. The official investigation, despite the fact of permanent surveillance over Viktor Gonchar and Anatoly Krasovsky conducted by the KGB, announced that the case could not be solved. After Mr. Gonchar and Mr. Krasovsky disappeared the KGB issued a statement claiming that surveillance was suspended precisely on September 16.

The apparent failure of the Belarusian authorities to investigate the whereabouts of the disappeared Anatoly Krasovsky has drawn sustained international criticism from the institutions like the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), the Inter-Parliamentary union (IPU), the united Nations Committee against Torture and others.

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