Media: Lukashenka Pardons Former Head Of His Security Utsyuryn

• 29.09.2024, 20:24

He served less than half of his sentence.

Dictator Lukashenka pardoned former Deputy State Secretary of the Security Council and former head of his security service Andrei Utsyuryn. In 2020, he was sentenced to 12 years in prison for corruption.

Former political prisoner Siarhei Piatrukhin reported on Utsyuryn's release. сообщил бывший политзаключенный Сергей Петрухин. Источники Nasha Niva's sources confirmed this information.

Andrei Utsyuryn headed the Security Service of Aliaksandr Lukashenka in 2007 and led it for seven years. In 2014, Lukashenka dismissed Utsyuryn from his post and appointed him Deputy State Secretary of the Security Council.

Utsyuryn was detained in the spring of 2019 while accepting a bribe from a Russian businessman. Later, Lukashenka said that Utsyuryn had been targeted by security forces when he was still the head of the security service.

Utsyuryn's trial lasted from April to July 2020. He was found guilty of accepting bribes totaling $192,000.

He was paid this amount for lobbying for the supply of telecommunications equipment for the Interior Ministry's Internal Affairs Directorate, in particular for prison #8 in Zhodzina.

Utsyuryn was sentenced to 12 years in a maximum security penal colony and stripped of his rank of colonel.

The former high-ranking security official served his sentence in a penal colony in the urban settlement of Vitsba in the Vitsebsk region. A total of 16 people were convicted in the “Utsyuryn case”. Among them are officials from the Ministry of Finance, as well as managers of the National Bank, BPS-Sberbank, Belarusbank, the head of Beltelecom, and representatives of commercial structures. In addition, Russian businessmen who gave bribes were given prison terms.

In total, more than $1.65 million was confiscated from those involved.

Thus, Utsyuryn served less than half of the 12 years assigned to him.