President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko pardoned Rico Krieger, a 30-year-old German citizen, who was awaiting execution after being convicted of terrorism in June.
Krieger appealed to Lukashenko for a pardon on 30 July. The German Foreign Ministry reported that it was “in close contact with the authorities” of Belarus regarding the fate of its citizen. The Belarusian Foreign Ministry said that it had offered Berlin “concrete solutions.”
According to the Belarusian laws, the head of state has the right to make such a decision. The Belarusian president held a meeting with his advisers to discuss the issue. Lukashenko said at the meeting:
“Rico Krieger is a German citizen. It turns out that he was born only in 1993. I once said that the hardest thing in the fate of the president is such cases involving an exceptional measure of punishment.”
Minsk regional court sentenced Krieger to death on July 20. He was found guilty under six articles of the Criminal Code of Belarus, including a terrorist act, mercenarism, cooperation with a special service of a foreign state, associated with the commission of actions to the detriment of national security, agent activity, deliberate damage to communication routes, which could lead to the death of a person, crash, accident and other serious consequences.
He was filming a military unit in October 2023 and set off an explosion at a railway station on the instructions of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU). Krieger also stated that he worked for the SBU.
Krieger said he had “sent applications” to all foreign armed formations operating in Ukraine. One of them offered him to join their ranks after fulfilling “assignments.”
