Belarus has executed two estate agents who conned six vulnerable people into giving up their homes then killed them and buried them alive.

Igor Gershankov, 37, and Semyon Berezhnov, 32, were ordered to kneel then shot in the back of the head with a pistol by a state executioner in a Minsk jail.

The killers rented flats for a day and pretended they were selling them to customers, taking their old houses before spiking their vodka and murdering them.

Gershankov's wife Tatiana, mother of the couple's two children, was sentenced to 24 years, escaping the death penalty as Belarus - the last country in Europe to carry it out - does not execute women.

Semyon Berezhnov, left, and Igor Gershankov, right, have been executed in Belarus for their role in an estate agent scam in which six people were murdered

A fourth member of the gang of 'evil' estate agents, Boris Kolyosnikov, 22, was jailed for 22 years.

Hardline president Alexander Lukashenko, who has ruled Belarus for almost a quarter of a century in what has been dubbed Europe's 'last dictatorship', refused to pardon the pair.

Their families were not informed in advance that the men would be killed nor permitted a final meeting.

The group were convicted of persuading six lonely 'alcoholics' who lived on their own in Mogilyov region to swap their flats for smaller apartments and a cash sum.

The victims were shown their 'new homes' - in reality a flat the 'evil' estate agents had rented for a day - and signed over their old residence to a gang member.

The estate agents offered them vodka to celebrate completing the deal, but the shots were spiked with medication Clonidine to make them drowsy.

Then they were taken to 'abandoned places' and killed - or in several cases, according to police, were buried alive.

Three empty graves had been prepared for 'future victims', a court heard.

Tatiana Gershankova breaks down in tears as she hears her sentence. The mother of Igor Gershankov's two children, she was handed 24 years in prison

The four gang members at court, with Tatiana Gershankova hiding her face. Belarus is the last country in Europe which still uses the death penalty

The fourth conspirator, Boris Kolyosnikov, 22, was jailed for 22 years. The killers conned victims by pretending a flat they had rented for a day was a property for sale

The death sentence verdicts were upheld by Belarus's Supreme Court on 20 December last year.

The men filed appeals to the United Nations Human Rights Committee, but appear to have been executed before the due process had completed. They had claimed confessions were 'forcibly' extracted from them.

It is unclear exactly when the executions were carried out as the authorities routinely do not give details, but they are said to take place at a jail known as SIZO No 1 in Minsk.

The former head of the facility Oleg Alkaev said that on occasions he had to take two or three shots if the doctor present recorded a heart beat after the first bullet.

The method of execution is similar to that used in Soviet times under Stalin.

Gershankov's mother 'received confirmation that the sentence was carried out from the Mogilyov regional court on November 28,' said human rights group Vesna.

Earlier in a court hearing footage showed a tearful Tatiana Gershankova pleading from a court cage surrounded by armed police: 'I have two children. I am not responsible for these crimes. Why me?'

Tatiana Gershankova (left) was spared the death penalty as Belarus does not execute women, but her husband Igor (right) was one of the two men shot with a pistol in a Minsk prison

Police exhuming the body of one of the estate agent gang's victims. Then they were taken to 'abandoned places' and killed or even buried alive

Longtime strongman Lukashenko, a 64-year-old former collective farmer, is known to have pardoned only one death row inmate.

The EU, the OSCE and a strong of international organisations have condemned the death penalty in Belarus.

The United Nations Human Rights Committee said this month that the death penalty 'continues to be imposed and enforced' and the country has not complied with its requests for a delay in sentencing or execution in six recent cases.

It also condemned the practice of not informing relatives of the date execution and not allowing them to bury the body as 'traumatic' and 'inhumane treatment.'

This month Amnesty International said only action by Lukashenko could ban the death penalty in Belarus.

There have been suggestions a referendum should be held but a spokeswoman for the organisation said: 'As history shows, a majority of the population are in favour of retaining the death penalty.'