Belarus guard get 2-year sentence for teddy bears

MINSK, Belarus (AP) - A Belarusian court has handed out a two-year prison sentence to a border guard who failed to protect the ex-Soviet nation from foreign teddy bears.

Belarus Supreme Court said on Monday the guard has been convicted of failure to report an intrusion of a light plane that dropped hundreds of teddy bears decked out in parachutes and slogans supporting human rights over the tightly controlled country of 10 million. The court wouldn't give his name or rank.

Belarus' President Alexander Lukashenko, dubbed "Europe's last dictator" in the West, already sacked several top defence officials over the July 4 incident, in which two Swedish advertising agency employees piloted a light plane into Belarus' heavily guarded airspace in a show of support for Belarusian human rights activists.