MINSK/MOSCOW, May 30 (RIA Novosti) – A foreign national has been detained in Minsk on suspicion of being involved in espionage, the Belarusian security service, the KGB, said on Thursday.
“Last week we detained a man in Minsk. He is suspected of gathering information for a foreign intelligence service,” Russian media reported KGB Chairman Valery Vakulchik as saying.
According to the Russian media, Vakulchik also said that the suspect was detained while in the process of receiving information that was of interest to him.
When called by RIA Novosti, the KGB’s press service confirmed that a foreign man had been detained on suspicion of passing information to foreign intelligence, but declined to comment further, saying that “the fact and extent of his involvement are for the court to decide.”
Further information is unlikely to be released while the investigation is ongoing, the KGB’s press spokesman said.
Often referred to in the Western press as "Europe's last dictatorship," Belarus is Europe's most politically isolated nation. In February, the Committee to Protect Journalists published a report calling the country "one of the world's most censored nations."
The US and EU have imposed a variety of sanctions against Belarusian entities and officials, including the country’s authoritarian president Alexander Lukashenko, who has led Belarus since 1994.
