MOSCOW (Reuters) -Rico Krieger, a German national sentenced to death in Belarus on terrorism charges, has asked for an official pardon, Pul Pervogo, a Telegram channel close to President Alexander Lukashenko, said on Tuesday.
The purported request comes as Russia is in talks with the West about a possible prisoner exchange involving U.S. reporter Evan Gershkovich who was convicted by a Russian court on spying charges he denies and other Westerners being held in Russia.
Among those Russia would like to free is Vadim Krasikov, a Russian serving a life sentence in Germany for murder, an exchange that would require Berlin to get something in return.
Germany’s foreign ministry confirmed earlier this month that a German citizen had been sentenced to death in Belarus, a close Russian ally which allowed Moscow to use its territory in 2022 to send troops into Ukraine, and the only European country which still applies the death penalty.
In an interview with Belarus-1 state TV published last week, Krieger said he had been tasked by Ukraine’s SBU security service to photograph military sites in Belarus last October and had been told to plant explosives on a train line southeast of Minsk. The explosives went off but no one was hurt.
It was not clear whether Krieger was speaking under duress or not. In the interview, he said he regretted his actions and hoped to secure a pardon from Lukashenko.
Lukashenko was quoted by the BelTa state news agency as saying on Tuesday that, as president, he would have the “last word” on Krieger’s case.
BelTa said Lukashenko had invited people involved in Krieger’s case to speak with him, but did not specify who those people were. The news agency published a photograph of Lukashenko sitting at a table with five people.
“I’ve already said once that the most difficult things in the fate of a president is such cases involving exceptional punishment,” Lukashenko was quoted as saying.
“But a decision has to be made. I just want to consult with you in this regard,” he said.
(Reporting by Reuters; Writing by Anastasia Teterevleva and Lucy Papachristou; editing by Guy Faulconbridge/Andrew Osborn)
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