Scientist released from jail for criticism of Chernobyl

Belarussian scientist Yuri Bandazhevsky, a specialist in nuclear medicine, at his home in Minsk yesterday. PHOTO: AFP

A Belarussian scientist named Yuri Bandazhevsky, a specialist in nuclear medicine who was jailed for eight years in 2001 for criticizing the way the effects of the Chernobyl disaster were dealt with, arrived home in Minsk late Sunday.

He had been released from prison on Friday on parole, the Lyon-based Independent Commission for Research and Information on Radioactivity said.

"I did not expect this and did not hope for this. I merely survived, trying to keep my health intact," Bandazhevsky said, adding that he was still in "half-shock" and was waiting for his wife, Galina, who was away from home.

"I intend to just live on. I don't know where, don't know what I will do. I will just live on, that's all," Bandazhevsky said, adding that he felt "there were some problems" with his health.

Former of the Gomel medical institute, Bandazhevsky was considered a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International. He was arrested in late 1999 and sentenced in 2001 to eight years in a labor camp for "corruption." Bandazhevsky had accused the authoritarian government of President Alexander Lukashenko of irresponsibility in dealing with the effects of the explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear plant in 1986 on health and concealing the extent of the disaster.