Lawyer of Kanavalau, executed for metro terror attack, speaks for the first time about what happened during the investigation

Lepretar recounts that he became Kanavalau's defender by chance, as he happened to be the duty lawyer that day. He received a call from the legal consultation office of the Central District of Minsk asking him to go to the detainee. An operative from the Preliminary Investigation Department even agreed to send a car for him. As Lepretar recalls, Kanavalau looked unwell at their first meeting, as "he had clearly drunk a lot the day before."

"The first thing I asked was: 'Do you even understand what you're saying?' He said: 'Yes.' I said: 'Do you want to talk to me before giving any testimony?' — 'No.' And I won't insist. Well, I have no right," Lepretar reconstructs the chronology of those events.

The defender states: when the investigative actions began, he increasingly realized how complex and difficult this case was. According to the lawyer, at first, it was difficult for him to reconcile what the accused was saying with his own observations of what was happening.

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Dzmitry Kanavalau. Photo: "Nasha Niva"

"But the more he spoke, the more I understood that a person who was completely uninvolved could not know such details," the lawyer explains.

Lepretar draws attention to Kanavalau's rather strange position during the investigation: it was clear from his behavior that he was not interested in any of it.

"They ask him — he answers. He doesn't elaborate on his thoughts, doesn't try to explain anything. He just says exactly as much as he's asked. It felt like he was doing it just so they would leave him alone. He wasn't interested. That is, everything that was happening around... And there were a lot of interrogations. Literally daily interrogations," the lawyer clarifies.

When asked to describe Kanavalau as a person and share the impression he made on him, Lepretar noted:

"This is a very difficult question. In fact, I don't have an answer to it, because his behavior was like this, like: 'Just leave me alone. I'm here because I'm forced to be here. I don't really want to talk to you at all.'"

The lawyer adds that he began every meeting with his client during the preliminary investigation by asking if Kanavalau wanted to talk to him privately. And he always received a negative answer.

"Kanavalau is a man-mystery. He was constantly in some kind of cocoon of his own and very reluctant to let anyone in,"

the lawyer shares his thoughts and recalls that only once did his client refuse an investigative action that was supposed to take place in Vitsebsk.

"We had already arrived in Vitsebsk, and he said: 'No, I don't want to.'"

Lepretar emphasizes that he saw Kanavalau every day, and the latter had the opportunity to complain to him, for example, about pressure from investigators. But there were no complaints.

"The only problem was that he was always very poorly dressed. I understand that his relatives and loved ones were so scared that he simply had big problems with clothes. By the time of the trial, apparently, some package had been handed over and he was more or less dressed," the lawyer says.

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Dzmitry Lepretar. Video screenshot: TOK_talk / YouTube

As the defender recalls, despite the absence of an official statement from Kanavalau, he once visited him on his own initiative. This happened after the verdict was announced.

"I went to inquire about appealing this whole case — whether we would or wouldn't write an appeal, a petition for clemency. (...) He refused and wrote a statement to that effect, saying that 'I have no intention of appealing the verdict, I will not file a petition for clemency. If the defender does, I will withdraw his appeal.'"

As Lepretar recalls, some time after this, a request to visit him came to the legal consultation office from Kanavalau, who remained in the KGB pre-trial detention center after the trial.

"The next day I was going to visit him, and then news came that there was no one left to visit," Lepretar recalls.

Despite reports in the press about the execution, he still went to the pre-trial detention center.

"Because what is a [legally binding] statement in the press? I issue a warrant, coordinate all this with the head, and say: 'I have such an instruction.' She says: 'Well, you have nothing left but to go.' And I go, knowing perfectly well that the person is no longer alive,"

the lawyer says and concludes:

"What he wanted to tell me, I still don't know. But for some reason, he wrote that statement."

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