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Russia's Vice-Consul to meet with detained Uralkali CEO in Minsk

The vice-consul has already arrived at the detention centre of the Belarussian State Security Committee

Photo EPA/ITAR-TASS

Photo EPA/ITAR-TASS

MINSK, August 30 (Itar-Tass) - The vice-consul of the Russian Embassy in Belarus will meet with Uralkali company Director-General Vladislav Baumgertner detained in Minsk, a Russian embassy source told Itar-Tass on Friday.

The vice-consul has already arrived at the detention centre of the Belarussian State Security Committee, where the director-general is held in custody. The diplomat will hand over some necessities to the detainee and find out whether his rights are infringed. The vice-consul will also hear all the requests of the detainee.

The Investigation Committee of Belarus initiated criminal proceedings on charges of power abuse and official misconduct against another four top officials of the Belarusian Potash Company, including Oleg Petrov, a supervisory board member; Konstantin Solodovnikov, the company’s first deputy general director; Igor Yevstratov, the deputy general director for finance; Dmitry Samoilov, the head of the freight department. Both the Belarusian police and Interpol put them on their wanted lists.

All of them, including Vladislav Baumgertner, are accused of official misconduct which significantly damaged the state and public interests of Belarus, the Belaruskaliy open joint-stock company and the Belarusian Potash Company.

Earlier on Thursday, the Belarusian embassy in Russia has described as inadmissible any attempts to politicize the detention of Russian national Vladislav Baumgertner, the director-general of the Russia-based Uralkaliy company.

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