Lawyers of Belarusian citizen Sergei Eremeev, suspected of blowing up two trains with oil products in the longest tunnel BAM, reported that Since the beginning of January they have not known where he is. The “Zone of Solidarity” project writes about this.
After his arrest in December last year, Eremeev was in pre-trial detention center No. 1 in Irkutsk. According to the Belarusian's defenders, on January 6 he was taken to pre-trial detention center No. 1 in Ulan-Ude. On January 29, the administration of the Buryat detention center informed the lawyer that Eremeev had been transferred to Moscow, but he had not yet been found in any of the capital’s pre-trial detention centers.
“We don’t know where he is, in what condition, or whether he’s even alive. Knowing about dozens of arrests made by the KGB in Eremeev’s hometown of Novopolotsk at the direction of the FSB, as well as the tension that the explosions caused between the security forces of Belarus and Russia, we cannot rule out the worst,” said a joint statement from the Belarusian organizations BY_help, BYSOL, “Country for Life” and Dissidentby.
A train explosion in the Severomuisky tunnel occurred on November 29 on the stretch between the Itykit and Okushikan stations in northern Buryatia. After this, the security forces opened a case for violation of traffic safety rules and operation of railway transport (Part 1 of Article 263 of the Criminal Code). Later, a case of a terrorist attack appeared (part 1 of Article 205 of the Criminal Code).
Eremeev’s detention became known on December 7. According to security officials, Eremeev wanted to interfere with the transportation of military cargo. According to investigators, the suspect brought at least seven explosive devices from Belarus, which were given to him in the fall by “members of an organized criminal group.” The man allegedly received a monetary reward for transporting explosives and blowing up two trains.
The length of the Severomuisky tunnel exceeds 15 kilometers, making it the longest in Russia. Before the tunnel opened in 2003, trains followed a bypass line with lower capacity. Explaining the reason for choosing the tunnel for sabotage, Ukrainian media sources and CNN called this route “the only major railway connection between Russia and China.”