Minsk, December 31 (Interfax) - A Belarusian military court has found two Belarusian citizens guilty of spying for Lithuania, the Belarusian State Security Committee told Interfax on Tuesday.
“The Belarusian military court sentenced on December 30, 2013, Belarusian citizens A. Fenzelyau and Ye. Kochura on the counts of spying for Lithuania. They were sentenced to ten and eight years, respectively, for committing high treason (Part 1, Article 356 of the Belarusian Criminal Code),” State Security Committee press service head Artur Strekh said.
“Investigative operations and procedures held by the State Security Committee yielded irrefutable evidence of their criminal activity,” the spokesman stressed.
It was reported earlier that Fenzelyau and Kochura were taken into custody in March 2012.
Fenzelyau is a former serviceman who took permanent residence in Lithuania after his retirement from military service in Belarus. According to the Belarusian KGB, “The Lithuanian intelligence service tasked him to create a spy ring in Belarus for collecting information about the Belarusian Air Force and Air Defense units. The Lithuanian security services rendered financial support to their agent in starting a commercial project in Belarus.”
The investigative operations produced “electronic media and other objects and materials exposing espionage in the military sphere, including the Union State security network,” he said. There is also documentary evidence of the collection of information with the use of technical gadgets for its future transfer outside of Belarus.
Experts said that “the materials collected and prepared to be transferred to the Lithuanian security services belonged to the category of Belarusian state secrets.”
