Belarus strongman Alexander Lukashenko on Friday fired the head of his KGB security service following a mysterious suicide within the top ranks of one of the country's most feared institutions. Lukashenko replaced KGB chief Vadim Zaitsev with Security Council secretary Leonid Maltsev in response to a case that had never been officially confirmed to the public but which appears to have been a point of hushed debate within the government.
"Everyone knows about KGB Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Kazak's suicide," a presidential statement quoted Maltsev as telling a senior meeting in what appeared to have been the first public indication of his death. "There are a number of other questions that require very careful investigation as well," he added. Neighbours of the late Minsk KGB directorate chief had earlier anonymously told some websites that the 47-year-old Kazak had been found shot dead in the woods near his suburban residence with a hunting rifle nearby.
Lukashenko's office added that the KGB "had denied information about this incident until today." The KGB is regarded as one of the most powerful institutions in one-party Belarus and a key lever of influence used by Lukashenko during his 18 years of dominant rule. Belarus is the only ex-Soviet republic to have kept the feared Committee for State Security (KGB) name for its security service after the Soviet Union's collapse in 1991.
As president Lukashenko shuffles his most senior officials at times of particular tensions with the opposition at home, or with Western leaders who insist on the implementation of long-overdue political and economic reforms. But changes within the security service of one of Europe's most isolated regimes are rare.
The 48-year-old Zaitsev had been in charge of Lukashenko's personal security before being appointed to the national KGB service in July 2008. Lukashenko - once identified by Washington as Europe's last dictator and barred from travel over rights abuses by EU states - himself issued no comment on the sacking. But Security Council secretary Maltsev indicated that Zaitsev had attempted to block the investigation into the death of one of his top deputies.
"This was done to make sure that the investigation was conducted as objectively as possible," Maltsev said in the statement. Belarus analysts believe that unofficial oversight over most of the security agencies is being conducted by Lukashenko's older son Viktor and that Zaitsev had been his hand-picked choice to run the massive service. But some observers said even the presidential son's backing could not save Zaitsev from the international damage that his omnipotent service's reputation had suffered in the past four years.
The KGB has been directly blamed for arresting and jailing hundreds of dissidents as well as shutting down opposition newspapers and agencies that try to promote human rights. "Zaitsev turned the KGB into a laughingstock," said opposition-linked political commentator and reporter Pavel Sheremet. "He conducted meaningless repressions without even pretending to follow any necessary legal procedure," Sheremet observed.