Barred presidential candidate flees Belarus, fearing arrest

MINSK, Belarus (AP) — An opposition candidate who planned to challenge Belarus’ longtime authoritarian leader in next month’s presidential election says he has left the country with his children, fearing arrest. Valery Tsepkalo, a former ambassador to the United States, had been widely seen as President Alexander Lukashenko’s top rival in the Aug. 9 vote, but was denied a spot on the ballot last week. Tsepkalo said Friday that he moved to Russia with his two children after unnamed sources in the Belarus’s Interior Ministry and elsewhere warned him about a looming arrest and plans to strip him of his parental rights. Lukashenko, 65, has run Belarus with an iron fist for a quarter century, relentlessly suppressing free speech.