MINSK. May 10 (Interfax) - Belarus is planning to amend laws so that it could prosecute deceased Nazi criminals, Belarusian Deputy Prosecutor General Alexei Stuk said on Tuesday.
"Several hundred Nazi criminals and their accomplices have been identified during investigation of the criminal case [of Belarusian genocide during the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945]. They are scattered all over the world. Regretfully, we cannot hold everyone liable, considering that many are gone and some are hiding in unfriendly countries. Our requests for their questioning or extradition are not met," the press service for the Belarusian Prosecutor General's Office quoted Stuk as saying.
"Yet we may speak about 20-30 persons known to us for a fact. We have complete information about their crimes. Therefore, the Prosecutor General's Office has drafted amendments to the Criminal Code, which will allow us prosecuting deceased war criminals. Of course, it is a point of honor," Stuk said.
Minsk opened a criminal case of Belarusian genocide in the Great Patriotic War in 2021. Prosecutor General Andrei Shved said back then that the case aimed at recognizing Belarus as a genocide victim and stopping attempts at depreciating historical facts.
According to the Belarusian Prosecutor General's Office, there were more than 400 places of forcible detention of civilians, alongside 260 death camps and 170 ghettos in the Belarusian territory during the war, and at least 1.5 million people were killed there. Civilian casualties suffered by Belarus under Nazi occupation are estimated at approximately 3 million people, or about a third of the entire population.
In early 2022, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko signed into law a bill on Belarusian genocide during the Great Patriotic War. The law legally recognizes the fact of Belarusian genocide by Nazi criminals and their accomplices during the Great Patriotic War and the post-war period until 1961. In this case, the law defines as Belarusian people all Soviet citizens residing in the Belarusian Soviet Socialist Republic in that period. The law criminalizes public denial of Belarusian genocide.