Shooting of Gennady Shutov

On February 2, 2021, it became known that Aliaksandr Kardziukou would be charged with attempted murder, while a criminal case on the murder of Henads Schutau was not underway.

In the Kardziukou's court session on February 16, 2021, it turned out that on August 11, 2020, on Moskovskaya Street in Brest, a serviceman of the 5th Spetsnaz Brigade, Captain Roman Gavrilov, who was in civilian clothes and carried a Makarov pistol, shot at the back of Shutau's head.

On February 25, 2021, the Brest Regional Court (judge Svetlana Kremenovskaya) found Shutau guilty of resistance with the use of violence, Kardziukou was found guilty of attempted murder by her on top of that. The killed Shutau was returned a guilty verdict without sentencing, while Kardziukou was sentenced to 10 years in a strengthened regime penitentiary, as requested by the state prosecutor Gennady Bury. The victims were named servicemen of the 5th Spetsnaz Brigade Roman Gavrilov and Praporshchik Arseniy Golitsyn, who fired at both to kill.

On May 14, 2021, the Supreme Court of Belarus upheld the earlier judgments on the murdered Shutau and Kardziukou. According to Raman Kislyak, the Supreme Court failed to meet the criterion of independence when examining the appeal too, as the entire hearing was intended to exempt the military officers from punishment for murder and use of weapons.

On February 25, 2021, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya weighed in on the court decision taking the side of the media and activists that thought that charges were trumped up as part of a crackdown to keep President Alexander Lukashenko in power, "A peaceful protester Henadz Shutau was shot dead by siloviki (security forces) in plain clothes last Aug. His friend Aliaksandr Kardziukou witnessed it and ran away. Today, a court sentenced Kardziukou to 10 years in prison. Murdered Shutau was called guilty, and his murderer was called a victim."

On May 6, 2021, experts and analysts of the Viasna Human Rights Centre published a conclusion on the criminal case of Hienadz Shutau and Aliaksandr Kardziukou. Viasna's lawyers concluded that by bringing in the Special Forces of Belarus to suppress the protests, there were violations of the law (Article 3 of the Law "On the Armed Forces of the Republic of Belarus", Articles 16 and 17 of the Law "On the State of Emergency" in particular), while the secret unpublished decree of the President of the Republic of Belarus No. 99-c "On Approval of the Regulations on the State System of Response to Acts of Terrorism, Activities of Terrorist Organizations, Illegal Armed Formations and Mass Riots" "cannot be important for assessing the legitimacy of mutual actions of citizens and military personnel and cannot be the basis for imposing duties on citizens or restricting their rights." The experts also referred to their previous statements, according to which there were no riots in Belarus after the presidential elections in August 2020, but predominantly peaceful protests, the participants of which were unjustifiably subjected to ill-treatment and torture, took place; there were no regimes of martial law or a state of emergency, there was not an armed conflict, either.

Based on that conclusion, on May 7, 2021, by a joint statement of seven organizations, including the Viasna Human Rights Centre, the Belarusian Helsinki Committee, Aliaksandr Kardziukou was recognized as a political prisoner. On June 23, 2021, godparenthood for Aliaksandr Kardziukou was undertaken by Elisabeth Falkhaven, Member of Parliament of Sweden.

According to the Militsiya, on the evening of August 11, 2020, Hienadz Shutau and another man attacked police officers in Brest near the Moskovsky district administration, beat them with a metal pipe, and tried to take away their weapons. One of the militiamen, fearing for his life, shot the attacker in the shoulder, but because of his resistance "accidentally wounded him in the head". The wounded man was taken to a hospital. On August 13, 2020, he was transferred to the hospital of the Ministry of Defense in critical condition, where he died on August 19, 2020, at 10:20. Investigators promise to give a "legal assessment" of the actions of the attackers and the legality of the use of weapons.

At the end of the first decade of November 2020, the relatives of the murdered man received a response from the Investigative Committee of Belarus that there are "no grounds" for opening a criminal case upon the murder.

As of December, 28, 2020, no criminal case was opened on the killing of Shutau itself, while the Investigative Committee has still not closed the case against Shutau on resistance to law enforcement officers. At the same time, Aliaksandr Kardziukou, the witness of the murder of Shutau that was arrested and initially accused of resistance to a police officer, became accused of attempted murder. Why the article was changed was not explained but Kardziukou's sister thought that it could be made to fully acquit those who fired.

On August 20, 2020, the daughter of the perished reported that her father's body had not been returned to relatives, so the date of the funeral was still unknown. The relatives wanted to bury Hienadz Shutau in Zhabinka since his mother lived there. He was buried there on August 24.

On September 17, 2020, the European Parliament, in a resolution approved by an absolute majority of MPs, called for an "independent and effective investigation" of the death of Hienadz Shutau related to the protests.

On November 19, 2020, residents of Brest recorded a video message in connection with the escalation of violence in Belarus, among other things, draw the attention of the authorities to the need to investigate the murder of Hienadz Shutau so that the perpetrators would be punished in accordance with the law. On November 26, 2020, the European Parliament, in a resolution approved by an absolute majority of MPs, called for a "prompt, thorough, impartial, and independent investigation" into the killings during protests in Belarus, including Hienadz Shutau, thus supported the initiative of Brest residents.

Hienadz Shutau (Belarusian: Генадзь Шутаў, Russian: Геннадий Шутов; 25 November 1975 – August 19, 2020, Minsk) was a participant in protests against fraud in the 2020 Belarusian presidential election. He is the third officially recognized victim of the 9–12 August 2020 crackdown and the first from a firearm.