WARSAW: A Belarusian dissident who refused to leave his home country after being released from prison there earlier this week has gone missing, Belarus’s exiled opposition leader said Friday.
Mikola Statkevich, who ran against Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko in 2010 presidential elections, had been in jail for five years.
The 69-year-old was among 52 political prisoners freed on Thursday in a deal brokered by the United States, but unlike the other prisoners, he chose to remain in Belarus after his release, rights groups reported.
“We are very worried about the fate of Mikola Statkevich, who refused to leave Belarus,” opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya said at a press conference in Vilnius with some of the other freed prisoners.
She said his whereabouts were now “unknown,” without elaborating.
