Lukashenka Promises The Evening Standard to Release Khalip. But Interview Magically Disappears

British Daily The Evening Standard published a fragment of an interview with Aliaksandr Lukashenka he gave to British mass media on October 9, BelaPAN says.

In the fragment, Lukashenka promises to release journalist Iryna Khalip who were sentenced to two years’ imprisonment with two-year deferment.

The journalist asked why Khalip can’t go to Moscow to receive e.g. medical treatment.

“Is she here? I thought she is in Moscow. Send Khalip to Moscow with the evening horse with Zhenya [businessman Evgeny Lebedev who talked to Lukashenka]. Take her and never bring back. Let her go,” Lukashenka answered.

“I hear for the first time that she can’t go to Moscow for a treatment. I can’t say about this person anything at all. Do you want her to go to Moscow? Take her there.”

The journalist reminded that Khalip signed the cognizance not to leave Belarus.

“Clarify who in police is in charge of this and tell me,” Lukashenka addressed one of his assistants.

“We will settle the matter. The point is not in Khalip. I have taken a decision. You see, a dictatorship may be good too. There is no president who could take the decision at once. And I can.”

“Which decision?” Lebedev wondered.

“You know, that you’ll take Khalip home or where else as a wife,” Lukashenka responded.

However, when Iryna Khalip went to a police station where she is obliged to appear weekly and asked if she was really allowed to leave Belarus, the policemen only laughed, as she noted for Russian Novaya Gazeta.

They told the journalist that if she had tried to do this, she would have been delivered back in handcuffs.

“Lukashenka is not interested in releasing me. This year I had to be amnestied. All the papers were prepared. The amnesty was approved by the two chambers of the parliament. But when it came to the presidential signature, I was said I had no right to amnesty.”

Khalip said: “I understand Lukashenka’s wish to show off before the journalists. He likes beautiful gestures. But journalists leave, and a prisoner remains behind bars.”

However, strange things have happened to the fragment of the interview: it simply disappeared from the website of The Evening Standard. But it may be not that surprisingly if mention that Lukashenka actually did not gave The Evening Standard any interview, tut.by notes.

The talk — which took place on October 9 — wass called by Belarusian state TV the interview with The Independent and BBC.

The Evening Standard was also mistaken that the journalist who talked with Lukashenka was Oliver Pool. It is clearly seen that Evgeny Lebedev, the owner of The Evening Standard. Lukashenka even addressed him in a very friendly manner and called “Zhenya.”

Still, there is no mystery in The Independent’s information appearing in The Evening Standard as The Independent is owned by Russian tycoon and former KGB officer Alexander Lebedev who is simultaneously the father of Evgeny Lebedev. Evgeny Lebedev, in his turn, is the owner of The Evening Standard.

Now, the interview is unavailable even through the Google cache. The only source to Lukashenka's promise now is the video by Belarusian TV.

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