KGB arrested influential businessman Baskin soon after the arrest of business tycoon Chyzh

Yauhen Baskin and Yury Chyzh, photo by ced.by

Prominent businessman Yauhen Baskin and several top managers with his company SZAT Servolux were arrested by KGB on March 14 just days after Yury Chyzh’s arrest on suspicion of felony.

Barys Bukhel, a rights activist in Mahilieu, said that he had been contacted by the family of one of the arrested executives of SZAT Servolux.

"They asked me for help with finding a lawyer," BelaPAN quotes him saying. "They said that Baskin and three to four more people were arrested yesterday. All of them were taken to Minsk. It was the KGB that made the arrests."

According to the activist, Mr. Baskin, who is ranked sixth in a media outlet's latest list of top 200 most successful and influential businesspeople in Belarus, was allowed by the KGB officers to make a phone call to his family after his arrest.

Mr. Baskin's arrest came days after KGB officers arrested business tycoon Yury Chyzh, the owner of the Triple conglomerate, on suspicion of tax evasion, an offense penalized under Part Two of the Criminal Code’s Article 243.

A number of other persons were arrested in the case along with Mr. Chyzh, Dzmitry Pabyarzhyn, spokesman for the Committee for State Security (KGB) said. All those arrested were placed in the KGB detention center in Minsk.

Mr. Chyzh is often described as the wealthiest businessman in Belarus.

After considering the Belarusian business tycoon`s lawsuit seeking the abolition of the EU General Court’s restrictive measures against him and entities controlled by him, the Court found that the Council of the European Union had «provided no evidence showing that Mr. Chyzh financially supported» the Lukashenka regime and ruled that the sanctions were not justified.