BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

04/12/2006

Belarus Police Detain Opposition Leader

By YURAS KARMANAU : Associated Press Writer

MINSK, Belarus -- Police briefly detained Belarusian opposition leader Alexander Milinkevich on Monday for the third time in two weeks, accusing him of drug trafficking, his spokesman said.

Pavel Mazheyka said security agents had received an anonymous tip about alcohol and drugs in the car carrying Milinkevich in the city of Belozyorsk, about 165 miles southwest of the capital, Minsk.

Police forced Milinkevich and two other opposition activists to a police station, where they remained even though a search of the car did not reveal any alcohol or drugs, he said. He was released about three hours later.

"This yet again proves the theory that this is just the latest provocation against the leader of the opposition," Mazheyka said.

Milinkevich has been traveling around the country before local council elections scheduled for next month.

He was detained earlier because he allegedly resembled someone who had been in a car that had fatally run over a pedestrian. After traveling to Latvia to meet with President Bush at a NATO summit last month, he was stopped by authorities at the Minsk airport for allegedly carrying a forged passport.

Milinkevich, the main challenger to authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko, led unprecedented demonstrations in Minsk after the March presidential vote, which officials said Lukashenko won overwhelmingly but opposition activists and Western countries rejected as rigged.

He spent two weeks in jail following an April 26 protest that attracted about 10,000 people.

Also Monday, the U.S. Embassy said U.S. Ambassador Karen Stewart met with the wife of Alexander Kozulin, another opposition presidential candidate who is serving a 5 1/2-year prison sentence and is in the 46th day of a hunger strike.

At the meeting Nov. 30, Irina Kozulina said her husband had lost nearly 90 pounds, according to the U.S. Embassy. His lawyer and family have been forbidden from meeting him, Kozulina said, adding, "we fear the worst."

"It is tragic that the oppression of the regime has forced Belarusians to take drastic measures to express their views," the embassy said.

Lukashenko has ruled Belarus since 1994, quashing dissent and maintaining his power through elections dismissed by critics abroad and at home as illegitimate -- tactics that have earned him the moniker "Europe's last dictator."

Source:

http://www.heraldsun.com/firstnews/37-795893.html