The decision dealt a blow to the relatives of the victims and their lawyers, who saw the trial as a milestone in the effort to deliver judicial accountability on behalf of the three Belarusian opposition leaders who vanished nearly 25 years ago.
Mr. Harauski had also admitted to being a part of a special unit in the Belarusian Ministry of Interior known as SOBR. He said the unit had abducted and killed the three men: Yuri Zakharenko, a former interior minister; Viktor Gonchar, a former deputy prime minister; and Anatoly Krasovsky, a pro-opposition businessman.
In news interviews, and in testimony in court, Mr. Harauski described in detail how the eight-member SOBR unit had snatched the men off the streets of Minsk, the Belarusian capital, and drove them to two Interior Ministry bases, where the unit's commander shot each man twice in the back.
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