"Only Then Can There Be A Warrant For Lukashenko's Arrest"

• 18.03.2026, 15:28

The ICC can start with the regime's strongmen, judges and prosecutors.

The Prosecutor's Office of the International Criminal Court has started investigating crimes against humanity committed by the Lukashenko regime.

What does the start of the ICC investigation mean for the dictator personally and for his entire regime? Human rights activist and former political prisoner Leonid Sudalenko told the website Charter97.org:

- Legally, the procedure looks like this: first, prosecutors collect evidence. These are documents, different testimonies, different orders. If the prosecutor believes that the evidence is already sufficient, then he applies to the judges of the International Criminal Court with a request to issue an arrest warrant for those he suspects. But the judges themselves will also still check whether there are so-called reasonable grounds to charge a particular person. It is important to realize that a warrant can only come after an investigation has been conducted. And such investigations, as we see, sometimes take even years - five years or more.

How quickly it will be in Belarus, in the Belarusian case, no one can answer this question yet, because Belarus is being considered for the first time, and the case against Belarusian officials is being considered in this format for the first time. At the same time, many experts and lawyers believe that the first defendant may turn out to be not Lukashenko at all. Because this is a fairly typical strategy of the International Criminal Court. They often start with lower-level officials: ministers, heads of law enforcement agencies, prosecutors, judges, heads of special services.

And the reason is simple: their personal role in the repression is easier to prove. They have signatures on documents, specific orders, specific actions that are recorded. And to accuse the head of state, prosecutors need to prove much more. Namely, that the crimes were part of the state policy, and the leader knew about these repressions and gave orders for their execution.

The risk zone may also include heads of law enforcement agencies, officials who, for example, supervised these repressions, employees of the prosecutor's office, courts, as well as heads of prisons, for example, detention centers.

I see a scenario here that may look like this: now the investigation has begun, then, perhaps, the first warrants for officials will appear, and only then may there be warrants for the direct prosecutors. But this is only possible if the evidence is strong enough. Only then can this warrant for Lukashenko's arrest appear. I emphasize: the most important thing to understand is that it will take years.

- How realistic is the prospect that the dictator himself will end up being indicted or even put on an international wanted list?

- The question here is the assessment of evidence and facts. What kind of evidence they will gather against Lukashenko. If they gather really serious evidence against him, with which the judges of the International Criminal Court will agree, then Lukashenko will be brought to justice. And vice versa, if there is not enough evidence, then it will not happen. It is not the repressions that were inside the country that are being considered here. The evidence will be the interstate repressions that concern Lithuania. Lithuania was the initiator of the appeal. We are talking about forced expulsion of people, often without documents.

This is what will be considered, and this is what will form the basis of the evidence of the regime's guilt in crimes against humanity. We are talking about forced expulsion, not deportation, because only a foreign citizen can be deported. When a person is removed from their country of birth, it is an expulsion. Perhaps the more correct legal term is precisely "forced expulsion". You could put it that way. So it all depends on the evidence. That's legally speaking. And if we do not speak legally, then we see what happened in Venezuela, for example, when they simply arrived by illegal methods, seized the head of state and took him to an American court.

- How can the regime really be held accountable for the deaths of protesters and political prisoners in prisons? And what should Belarus, Europe and international structures do for this?

- Belarus has not signed the Rome Statute, so the International Criminal Court will not consider what happened inside the country.

The repression that took place inside the country, Lukashenko's guilt in the fact that people are dying, that political prisoners are dying in prisons - all this will not be considered by the International Criminal Court. And no one will conduct an internal investigation under Lukashenko's rule, as long as he holds power.

Unfortunately, dictatorships can kill people for years, decades - and this is how it happens all over the world. Belarus is not the first here. We know many dictatorships, where people, for example, in Iran, can be killed by tens of thousands. Nevertheless, the whole civilized world just looks at it from the sidelines and keeps silent. And there are many other dictatorships. Therefore, Lukashenko is not the biggest evil for the international community.

Although our country is in the center of Europe, and, of course, when a dictatorship is somewhere on the edge of the world, it's one thing. Or somewhere in the Arab, Muslim world. But when the dictatorship is in the center of Europe, it's a little bit different.

But legally it looks like there are no legal mechanisms in international law to interfere in the internal affairs of a sovereign country, which is the Republic of Belarus. As of today, I emphasize, there are no such legal mechanisms.

And political mechanisms, such as sanctions, are already political issues. Or, for example, the deal that Trump is making with dictator Lukashenko. But all this is no longer a legal sphere. This is politics. Let the politicians talk about it. I am a human rights activist, I respect the law, and I can only comment on what happens from the point of view of the law.