BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

13/07/2007

Belarus KGB claims arrest of five Polish spies

Minsk - The Belarusian KGB on Friday arrested five spies working for the Polish government, a counterintelligence official told the Interfax news agency.

All the suspects were Belarusian citizens, the official said, citing his status as a KGB agent as grounds for anonymity.

A Minsk prosecutor is preparing charges against the detainees of 'wilfully providing secured state information to a foreign state ... with the goal of undermining the government,' the official said.

The penalty for spying in Belarus is 15 years, unless loss of human life took place as a result of the espionage, in which case the penalty is death.

The KGB announcement came after months of deteriorating relations between Minsk and Warsaw, a NATO state and one of the most active critics of authoritarian Belarusian President Aleksander Lukashenko.

Lukashenko and most senior Belarusian officials are banned from travelling to NATO nations, and links between Belarus' economy and that of the European Union are marginal.

Lukashenko has retaliated with crackdowns against Belarusian organizations believed by the KGB to be cooperating with NATO nations towards removing him from office.

Belarusian KGB raids recently have targeted evangelical Christian organizations and Polish ethnic societies - both, according to Lukashenko, long being used by Polish and other NATO secret services to undermine his regime.

c 2007 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur

Source:

http://news.monstersandcritics.com/europe/news/article_1329671.php/Belarus_KGB_claims_arrest_of_five_Polish_spies