"If you want them to be released - why do you then bang on me?", Alexander Lukashenko told a journalist who asked at a press conference about the fate of political prisoners.
After Lukashenko had interrupted a journalist, he quickly noted, "the president's opponents don't sit in prison".
Addressing the state secretary of the Security Council Leonid Maltsev, the president told him to find for Andrei Sannikov"a normal colony and let him live there in peace".
"Autukhovich slashed veins? I don't know. It's bad to slash veins, there is no need even in prison", he responded to the information about the political prisoner.
Alexander Lukashenko said that "when I hosted the country, and your democrats had almost 70 000 in prisons. But now 38 000. But everyone is equal under the law".
He emphasized, that named by a journalist prisoners are "the same criminals". "You protect the people with whom you have worked, they are your allies. I understand you and don't blame. But why do you blame me? If in America a person with a hammer pick, with a shovel has started to break down the door of the White House, he would be shot dead half a kilometer away. Why do you reproach me that I defended the government institution, and the scoundrels were sent to prison through a court. And it is not 450, but 20 or 25 the very instigators", the president said.
"I'm your last hope according to the Constitution, so they can be released from prison earlier. Why do you bang on me? I can respond in the same manner, and won't talk on this subject. Do you want to ask for it - ask. But you'll get nothing from me. Yes, I have the right to pardon them. If they ask, I will consider their request. Only in this way. Another politician, if he has been in my place, wouldn't answer like this. I'm trying to convince you and approach the problem in terms of my inner world", Lukashenko said.
