Byalyatski's arrest. Chronology.

Euroradio has found the agreement on legal assistance between Belarus and Lithuania, to which the Lithuanian Ministry of Justice refers. The agreement prescribes that a concrete criminal case, legal status of a person named in the case, and description of a crime's character should be indicated in the enquiry. Therefore, a criminal case should have been started against the human rights activist back in February, before the enquiry.

It is unknown what exactly was stated in the enquiry of the Belarusian side, the Lithuanians do not say this.

Ales Byalyatski's colleague Uladzimir Labkovich only saw the documents of the Belarusian side after the Lithuanians' response.

"I saw the materials passed to Byalyatski by the Pershamayski district tax inspection in Minsk. His bank account printout was indicated in them", – says lawyer of "Viasna" Uladzimir Labkovich.

Why Belarusian human rights defenders opened personal bank accounts for the organization's activity, not in the name of a legal entity? Labkovich explains this by the fact that "Viasna" is not registered in Lithuania.

"We had no such goal as to register "Viasna" in Lithuania; we are a Belarusian organization which tried to get registration in Belarus since the moment of our liquidation."

Scandinavian bank SEB had not provided the information about Byalyatski straightaway, so the Lithuanian Ministry of Justice obtained it through the court.

This means, this procedure was not as quick and simple as it seemed. However, Deputy Minister of Justice Vaitkevičius keeps on assuring the journalists that disclosure happened due to negligence.

"Unfortunately, unfortunately... They just did not understand that this surname was in some way connected with the opposition activity in Belarus. Didn't notice that this person is a human rights defender".

Mikalaj Khalezin, who first published the information about disclosure of data by the Lithuanian institutions in his blog, does not believe it. He thinks that the disclosure was committed with President Dalia Grybauskaitė knowing it.

The Lithuanian Minister of Justice is on vacation now. However, he appeared at the session of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Lithuanian Seimas, dedicated to Byalyatski's case. He said there were no grounds to look for the guilty in this incident.

Editor of the web-site "Charter'97" Natallya Radzina spoke at the session of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Lithuanian Seimas.

"I told that when I had suffered from repressions in Belarus, "Viasna" under Ales Byalyatski's leadership helped me. I stated that it was a disgraceful fact that poorly weighed actions of Lithuania had led to the arrest of the human rights defender".

Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee Emanuelis Zingeris called the incident a disgrace.

Editor-in-Chief of the popular newspaper Lietuvos Rytas Rimvidas Valatka is surprised why the Minister is still at his position.

"Šimašius has already done the wrong thing as he should have resigned back on Friday".

Lithuanian MPs are looking for the guilty in this unpleasant incident.