The journalist was forced to sign a paper of cooperation.
The editor of the Finance.tut.by page Zmitser Bobryk wrote on Facebook that after a three-hour interrogation in the Investigative Committee about the “BelTA case” on August 7, he signed a cooperation agreement.
“It was in the building of the IC, where I was kept until late in the evening, that I allowed myself to show weakness and be afraid,” Zmitser wrote.
Bobryk also wrote that there were direct threats to him and his relatives.
“At first I was told that they would disclose the details of my personal life if I refused to cooperate. It all ended with threats to relatives who would suffer. Then I started shaking, they threatened the most important things in my life. I wrote a paper on cooperation,” the journalist wrote.
According to Bobryk, he immediately realized that he would not be able to cooperate.
Immediately after this, the journalist was transferred from the status of a witness to the status of a suspect. Bobryk admits that after this pressure on him intensified.
“I hate that I did not have the courage to refuse to cooperate then and there. I am happy I was strong enough to not actually do it, “adds Zmitser.
On August 7 and 8, the Investigative Committee searched the offices of Tut.by and BelaPAN and the apartments of several employees of these outlets. The investigators opened a criminal case on illegal access to paid content of the state media BelTA. They face up to two years in prison.
On August 27 it became known that the Investigative Committee had banned Zmitser Bobryk and other suspects in this case from going abroad.
In early September, Alyaksandr Lukashenka awarded the investigators working on the BelTA case with medals.
