Up to 1,500 people may be interrogated in different countries as part of the criminal case on crimes against humanity in Belarus, which is being investigated in Poland under the mechanism of universal jurisdiction, Polish lawyer Tomasz Wilinski told BPN.

The investigation is being conducted by the Polish Prosecutor's Office in Lublin, the lawyer said.

Now Tomas Vilinski filed a statement on behalf of 10 victims.

In addition to them, 30 more people in Poland are planning to testify at the moment.

The victims can be interrogated not only in Poland, but also in other EU countries, the USA and Canada, Vilinski added.

On March 24, Paval Latushka, the head of the People's Anti-Crisis Administration, testified as a victim in the case.

This is the first known testimony in Poland.

Also, among the Belarusian politicians who are involved in the case as victims, Tomas Vilinski mentioned Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, Valery and Veronika Tsapkalou.

The lawyer noted that the case was opened under a number of articles of the Criminal Code of Poland, including articles related to international crimes: violence against protesters, forced displacement (the case of the attempt to extradite the current police prisoner Maria Kalesnikova abroad).

Also in Poland, the episodes of the migration crisis on the border with the European Union are being investigated, the lawyer said.

He also plans to send to the prosecutor's office additional materials related to events after December 2021, which relate to the complicity of the Belarusian authorities in the war against Ukraine.

  • Several criminal cases have already been opened in Poland "in connection with the crimes of [Alexander] Lukashenka's regime" after the 2020 presidential elections, Olga Dobravolskaya, director of the legal aid department of the Belarusian Solidarity Center, told journalists in October 2022.

  • In December 2021, Tomas Vilinski sent a statement to the National Prosecutor's Office of Poland about suspicion of genocide and crimes against humanity committed by representatives of the Belarusian government.

  • In January 2022, he filed a statement on behalf of "a large number of citizens of Belarus" against Alexander Lukashenko and Belarusian officials to the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

    The document contains 160 pages of legal reasoning and 40,000 pages in the appendix.

  • On October 4, 2022, Paval Latushka reported that a criminal case had been opened in Lithuania against a Belarusian judge who makes politically motivated sentences.