Mystery and infamy surround Lee Harvey Oswald, the man who shot US President John F Kennedy in Dallas, 50 years ago. So it's odd to visit a city where people remember him clearly and fondly - and refuse to believe he is guilty.

"I just liked the guy," says Ernst Titovets, a medical student who attached himself to Lee Harvey Oswald after the American defector's arrival in Minsk, then the capital of the Soviet republic of Byelorussia, in 1959.

The pair went to dances and concerts together, they both enjoyed practical jokes, and both energetically chased young female students.

Titovets, who spoke good English, was able to play Cupid's helper when Oswald met his future wife, Marina, whom he describes as "attractive in a raw sexual sort of way"....