From December 1996 to May 2001, Alkaev was the head of Detention Center No. 1 of the Penitentiary Committee of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Republic of Belarus in Minsk. In 2001, Alkaev twice, on the personal instructions of the minister, issued a special pistol PB-9*, intended for carrying out death sentences; later, comparing the dates, he suggested that Yury Zacharanka, Viktar Hanchar and Anatol Krasouski were killed with this pistol. When it became obvious to him that the law enforcement agencies did not intend to take the necessary steps to investigate, he published interviews and documents in the opposition press.
*The PB (Pistolet Besshumnyy, "Silent Pistol") pistol, a silenced pistol from the USSR.