Police organ organized crime group "Almaz"

How did he prepare crimes against his enemies Lukashenko? Interview of the officer Igor Makar, who published the "wiretap" of the chairman of the KGB of Belarus

Igor Makar, an officer who published the “wiretapping” of the conversation of the KGB Chairman of Belarus, who planned the murder of Pavel Sheremet, - tells the Sobrik “New” about to whom he himself was an entry, who shot Alexander Taraykovsky on August 10 in Minsk, what are the moods in the power structures and why derive the Almaz special unit on the streets.

The recording of the conversation of eight years ago, in which the then chairman of the KGB of Belarus, Vadim Zaitsev and two employees of the KGB of Alfa, discussed the future killings of at least four citizens of Belarus who are abroad, was published thanks to a former employee of another special forces, also located abroad. There is some almost artistic completeness in this.

Igor Makar is a former deputy commander of the combat group of special forces to combat the Almaz terrorism of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Belarus, and now a representative of the Civil Initiative “Belarusian People’s Tribunal”. In Almaz, he served from 1998 to 2004. Then he quit, entered the team of Alexander Kozulin during the 2006 presidential election. After those elections, Alexander Kozulin was arrested during the protest and returned home, like several hundred Minsk residents. Only Kozulin returned home not after 15 days, but after two and a half years. And Igor Makar managed to go to Europe and ask for political asylum.

Igor maintained contacts with many Belarusian security forces in exile. One of them gave him that record with Zaitsev's voice.

- Igor, when was Vadim Zaitsev’s conversation with two Alfa employees at your disposal?

- I received a record from my anonymous sources in the KGB then when it was made - in 2012.

“Do you think that you were doing the right thing when you kept it with you for eight years?”

“I did not hold her with me.” When I first listened to this record, I heard there the name of my friend Oleg Alkayev, the former head of the pre -trial detention center No. 1 of Minsk. We are binding a lot: we are both officers, we both received political asylum at different times, we have common interests and goals. And I wanted to first save his life, especially since my source said that everything is very serious and will soon be fulfilled. And I transferred information to American diplomats.

Then I learned that Oleg Alkaev, who lived in Berlin, called from the criminal police of Germany, recommended not to leave the country and even from Berlin, offered security. Oleg refused personal protection, but external observation was carried out. I don’t know anything according to the rest of the discussed in this record, but Oleg told me that Pavel Sheremet personally warned me. He did not know the content of that record, but since his life was in danger, he simply compared the facts - they wrote the book “Firing Team” together - and suggested that Sheremet could also threaten danger. Pavel was densely investigating the explosion in the Minsk metro in 2011 and was generally an irritant for this dictatorial regime, so he was warned. Unfortunately, Paul was still killed.

- Did you transfer only information to the American diplomats regarding your friend Oleg Alkayev, or the whole record?

- I handed them all the information with all the names.

- If Alkaev called the criminal police, then the information was supposed to go to all other countries, where there were those whose elimination discussed in the Horestean office. Why do you think the Ukrainian special services did not respond even then?

- In 2012, Pavel was just about to move to Ukraine. But I know that the information was transferred to the Russian Federation, and to Ukraine, and even to the Belarusian Foreign Ministry. By the way, then Vadim Zaitsev was removed from the post of chairman of the KGB. He tried his best to prove that he was devoted to Lukashenko. He gave an interview in which he said that he would do everything for the sake of Lukashenko - in essence, he asked back. But he was not returned to the KGB.

- I know that you maintain relations with former colleagues and generally with security forces from different departments. What, in your opinion, changes now occur in power structures? I mean their attitude to Lukashenko.

- There is a very serious zombie. The same OMON and the special forces of the internal troops regularly say that people go to rallies for Lithuanian and Polish money. This is necessary in order for the power block to maintain the regime and commit crimes against the people. But, communicating with former colleagues, I can say that at least 30% of the employees of the power bloc - the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the KGB, the internal troops - just float with the flow and try not to think about anything. If two employees can still affect some political topics in conversations, then three are no longer. Fear. But it is these 30% will go over to the side of the people, when they see that the alignment of forces has changed, and the regime has really staggered.

- And to what extent should the regime shake so that they go over to the side of the people? Something should serve as a trigger?

- I will not wag and bustle, I will tell you as it is. Today you can already talk about this. Everyone perfectly understands that Lukashenko has become a real stimulus in society. Each mention of him annoys people. He became toxic. And it was precisely the employees of law enforcement agencies who did not commit crimes or committed some minor crimes that have not been recorded anywhere-they, albeit unofficially, contribute to the fact that this house house has developed. But those who have been stealing crimes will protect this regime to the end. They also understand that in the future free Belarus there will be no riot police, “diamond”, “alpha” and they will turn into outcasts. Already today it is better not to walk around the city in a police uniform - this is a shame. And when this house finally forms, everything will be investigated.

Each fact will be disassembled in detail, each raising of the baton. Of course, forensic scientists and other services that have not participated in repressions will remain. And they will have a lot of work.

- You yourself served in Almaz at the turn of the century. Then it was a really elite special forces. And now he is thrown to suppress protests, and it is already known that a fatal shot in Alexander Taraykovsky on August 10 near the Pushkinskaya metro station was made by the Almaz fighter.

- August 9–11 in Minsk worked the entire personnel of the Almaz. In general, Diamond is a unit that works collectively. These are not operatives who can act alone, Diamond works only in a group. The video of the murder of Taraykovsky shows that any employee of Almaz could calmly come up and detain him or to command "lie down!" Or "On the knees!" But no one did this, because the “diamond” is so trained - it’s easier for them to shoot, which we saw.

Sending a “diamond” to accelerate the demonstration is the same as putting surgeons on the assembly of MAZ, and working mazes to the operating table.

Both of them, of course, will work if they are ordered (and in the case of the Almaz there was an order), but some will destroy production, and others - human lives. The Almaz special forces, in which functional responsibilities do not provide for such work, did not have the right to go outside to disperse protest shares. But the fighters were sent there, and as a result we saw a huge number of shots, saw a huge number of wounded, saw murder in the eyes of people, saw abandoning gas and light -school grenades, which also cause very serious bodily harm. And for this, the "diamond" will be responsible.

- And what are the restrictions in the use of special equipment? Fighters probably receive instructions?

- If you shot with a rubber bullet or buckshot from a distance of 20–25 meters, this may end very sadly. There are safety measures: shooting is allowed with rubber bullets from a distance of 50 meters or more. But in the video where Alexander Taraykovsky is killed, the distance between the Almaz fighter and Taraykovsky himself is no more than 10 meters - and then with a margin. In a person who stands with his hands in a T -shirt, without body armor and even without a jacket, shoot from 10 meters - this is shooting. According to safety instructions, a shot should be carried out in soft tissues so that there is no threat to life and health. You can’t shoot in the head, in the heart, in the groin.

And the shot in Taraykovsky was carried out in violation of all norms. There are the same instructions regarding rubber batons: you can’t beat your hands on your hands, you can not beat on the head. The light -school grenade has an aluminum case, and the detonator itself is made of solid metal. And if you are not far from this grenade, then the metal fragments can not only hurt, but also kill. I can say that no one observed and did not even try instructions on protest promotions at all. This means that Almaz’s employees calmly went out to do such a job, knowing that they would not bear any responsibility, as it was already in 2006 and in 2010. They thought that in 2020 everything would be the same. But it will not be, and I believe that they will be responsible.

- It turns out that the fighter who shot 10 meters in Taraykovsky realized that he was killing him?

- Understand that the fighters are sleeping with this weapon, they know him from and to, every day they shoot from it in training. Therefore, to say that he did not realize, it would be wrong. I realized, of course. But this means that he committed a deliberate murder. And if such people are working in Almaz now, I have no comments.

- When the Almaz began to reborn from the elite special forces to the gang of armed gopniks?

- “Almaz” today is a real organized crime group. I am not angry with the unit. I am not going to humiliate the fighters and say that I am good, because I went and sided with the people, and the unit, respectively, is bad.

Just the unit since 2006 has been drawn into political actions because of Lukashenko. In 2006, the commander of the Almaz was Nikolai Karpenkov. This person is devoted to Lukashenko and will follow any orders. He already fulfilled-many then, after the 2006 elections, were beaten and arrested. Almaz participated in this, and no one suffered punishment. As in 2010, as in August 2020.

When I worked there, they also tried to use us once to suppress the protest. In 2001, a rally against Lukashenko was held in the city center, and we sat in three minibuses near his residence. Then the head of the security service went out and asked us to protect them. He said that the security service, of course, will do its work, but not such professionals like us work there. “We really hope for you,” he said. “Then we will consider everything, give the apartments.” Of course, no one then spoke to us and did not give any apartments. People then - I definitely do not remember - either they themselves dispersed, or riot police dispersed them. And we just left for the base. And now I just can’t imagine that we could create in the square with our weapons there. Now the Almaz came out, of course, with armed and combat weapons - I saw both the Kalashnikov assault rifle and Glock - but basically the fighters had pump -pound guns. And when I served, everything was with combat weapons. Personally, I have three types of weapons: “Glock”, MP-5 and “ultrasound”. And if we were still released to disperse the action, what would we do? Shooted from machine guns at unarmed people? What a good luck that we were nevertheless returned to the base!

- Nikolai Karpenkov, who headed the Almaz in 2003, in the fall of 2020, as the head of state administration for organized crime and corruption (Gubopik), he personally destroyed the windows in a cafe that let out the runaway demonstrators, then participated in the abduction and torture of the owner of the Flower store Maxim Khoroshin, and even performed on the television with a statement on the readiness to apply Firearms to remove demonstrators from the streets. Lukashenko appreciated this zeal: he appointed Karpenkov as Deputy Minister of the Interior and the Commander of the Internal Troops. You managed to work with him for about a year. This person has always been so - ready to go to beat the windows and torture people?

- I met him even earlier: before the Almaz, when Karpenkov worked in the Presidential Security Service, I trained his group. They came to our base to train, and Karpenkov always asked me to coach them. As for the whipping showcase, he needed it - so that the Gupipik worked on the streets in balaclavas, in civilian clothes, in body armor and batons. They beat not only glass, but also people, and very cruel.

- And why did Karpenkov need the Gubopik to be on the streets? They have completely different functions.

- When Karpenkov was the commander of the Almaz, the unit really followed criminal orders. Then he was raised and appointed in the Gubopik, where everything began the same.

Those who served with him at different times have no doubt that Gubopik was engaged in “roofing” and drugs. Believe me, this will still come up.

Nothing new with Karpenkov this fall happened: after the August elections, he proved himself exactly the same as after the 2006 and 2010 elections. And now he has come to his goal, to which he went to for many years: he is the deputy minister and commander of the internal troops. And Lukashenko trusts him - he sees devotion.

- You now call yourself a representative of the Belarusian People's Tribunal. What is it and what kind of tribunal is the goal?

- The Belarusian People’s Tribunal is a civilian initiative. We collect not just information, but evidence of crimes committed and committed by the regime. If we return to what we started - with a recording of a conversation about the planned killings of Belarusian citizens in other states, this is an act of state terrorism.

We have other evidence of the crimes of the current regime. We prepare materials for the world community and for the future court. Because when Belarus becomes a free country, all these materials will form the basis of many criminal cases. In addition, we are developing a program of assistance to those who have been subjected to repression due to participation in protests.

- The record with which we started the conversation was made public eight years after it appeared. Are there any other notes that you intend to publish at your disposal?

- Of course, there is. And they will be published very soon. Remember, on that entry, the chairman of the KGB Zaitsev says: “It is necessary to apply spot strikes”? So, we will also apply our spot strikes on the regime and the environment of Lukashenko.