A small bomb exploded near the regional office of the Committee for State Security (KGB) in Vitsyebsk on Sunday evening.
The "primitive homemade pyrotechnic device" went off at 6:48 p.m., breaking the glass of two windows, KGB spokesman Alyaksandr Antanovich told reporters on Monday morning.
Three people have been arrested in connection with the blast based on findings of the investigation and eyewitness accounts, Mr. Antanovich said. One of them, a person with visible signs of a mental illness, had earlier phoned the KGB office and made offensive statements about Belarusian authorities, he said.
Criminal proceedings have already been instituted over the incident under Part Two or Part Three of the Criminal Code`s Article 339, which penalize "malicious hooliganism" and "especially malicious hooliganism." Part Two of Article 339 provides for a maximum penalty of six years in prison, while the maximum penalty for especially malicious hooliganism is 10 years in prison.
According to preliminary estimates, the pyrotechnic device was hidden inside a metal can of between 0.25 and 0.33 liters and consisted of a cardboard or plastic tube packed with between 50 and 70 grams of a pyrotechnic mixture. The bomb did not contain nails, metal balls or any other dangerous objects. The perpetrators set the bomb on fire to detonate it. Reports have it that a large number of young people were arrested and questioned in the wake of the incident.
