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Prosecutor general accuses authorities of not doing enough to prevent murders

Prosecutor General Ryhor Vasilevich has accused the police and local authorities of not doing enough to prevent murders, BelaPAN says.

While talking to reporters in Minsk on Wednesday, Dr. Vasilevich said that authorities in rural areas, where the murder rate is three times as high as in urban localities, failed to take sufficient efforts to tackle crime, unemployment and a lack of leisure opportunities.

As many as 487 people were murdered in Belarus in 2009, down from 552 the year before, according to the prosecutor general.

Eighty percent of all last year's murders were committed by drunk people and more than half were the result of an altercation between drinking companions. Roughly one in three murders was perpetrated by a person with a history of previous convictions, Dr. Vasilevich said.

Seventeen murders were not solved in 2009.

The prosecutor general expressed satisfaction with efforts by law enforcement agencies to find missing people.

He expressed regret that law enforcement agencies had so far failed to solve the murder of a clerk stabbed to death during an armed robbery at a currency exchange outlet in Minsk last December. A three-minute video made by a surveillance camera that shows the suspect has been available on the Internet and broadcast on TV, but no people have come forward with any information about the man yet, Dr. Vasilevich said.