In Belarus, Fate of 2 Sentenced to Die Is Unknown MOSCOW - Any moment now, in a basement or courtyard somewhere in Belarus, two young men are to be put to death. They were arrested, tried and convicted for carrying out a deadly bombing last year at a subway station in Minsk, the Belarussian capital. But there are serious questions about the case, so much so that international rights organizations and Western governments have pleaded with the Belarus authorities to put off the execution. Even several victims of the bombing have spoken up in defense of the condemned. This week, Belarus's president, Aleksandr G. Lukashenko, refused to pardon the men, meaning the execution could be carried out at any time. In fact, since officials do not typically inform family members or the news media of executions, both could already be dead. At least one of the men, Vladislav Kovalyov, had already been moved from the cell where he was held for trial, according to his mother, Lyubov Kovalyova. His whereabouts were unknown. "I have no information," Ms. Kovalyova said in a telephone interview on Friday. I don't know whether he is alive or dead. This is all that is important for me now. There were serious concerns about the investigation of the bombing almost from the start. Critics have long accused Mr. Lukashenko of using his extensive security apparatus, still called the K.G.B., to mete out justice arbitrarily and at his whim. Today, little more is known about the bombing than on the day it was carried out nearly a year ago. On April 11, 2011, around 5:55 p.m., an explosive device packed with nails and metal balls, and wired to a remote detonator, blew up in a crowded subway station in central Minsk. In all, 15 people were killed and about 200 were wounded. The bombing touched off a wave of panic in Belarus, a former Soviet republic of about 10 million people where such violence had been unprecedented. Within two days, Mr. Lukashenko announced that the police had arrested several suspects. Among them were two childhood friends from eastern Belarus: Dmitri Konovalov, a lathe operator, was charged with building and detonating the bomb; and Mr. Kovalyov, an electrician, was charged with aiding him. Both are 25. Though no motive was apparent or given, Mr. Lukashenko announced at the time that both men had confessed. Human rights defenders and others who attended the trial, which ended in November, said that beyond the confessions, prosecutors offered little conclusive evidence that the two men had carried out the bombing. "This was completely shocking," said Lyudmila Gryaznova, a founder of the Belarus-based Human Rights Alliance, who attended the trial. People who went to trial and saw what went on cannot say that they are guilty. There is no basis. Mr. Kovalyov later retracted his confession, saying he was beaten by investigators into giving it. He also testified in court that he heard Mr. Konovalov screaming in the next room during his interrogation. Mr. Konovalov is not known to have withdrawn his confession. Lawyers for the defendants said much of the other evidence against them was flawed. Surveillance video shown at the trial from inside the subway station around the time of the bombing was heavily edited, and lawyers said that Mr. Konovalov was obviously thinner and shorter than a man with a large bag seen in the video that prosecutors identified as the bomber. The judge acknowledged in his verdict that investigators had failed to find any trace of explosive residue on the clothes or bodies of the defendants. Several victims have also publicly questioned the men's guilt. The father of a young woman badly injured in the blast so annoyed court officials by questioning the evidence that he was arrested and imprisoned in a psychiatric hospital, rights groups said. In a closing statement at the trial, Lyudmila Zhechko, who was wounded in the blast but was present at the trial, gave a scathing assessment of the prosecutor's case.