Arrested “senator” Kastahorau has Russian passport and flat in Moscow

New details of the scandalous case have appeared.

Blogger Anatoli Mitsura, who lives in Moscow, published sensational information about Belarusian “senator” Vitali Kastahorau, who was detained on July 9. According to the blogger, the official has a Russian passport and owns a flat in Moscow. It can be concluded from an extract from the Unified State Register of Taxpayers of Russia.

“This is Novoslobodskaya, a station on the Koltsevaya Line of Moscow's Metro. You should come here to meet with member of the upper house of the Belarusian parliament Vitali Kastahorau,” blogger comments on photographs. “It is unlikely that the senator used the metro, but this is how you can get to his home.

This is the Central Administrative Okrug of Moscow. We leave the station, come to Dolgorukovskaya Street and look for building No.6. According to the extract from the Unified State Register of Taxpayers of Russia, the Belarusian “senator” lives there in flat No.65.”

The blogger says the flat costs approximately 1.5 million dollars. The block of flats is guarded and the territory around it is fenced.

“However, the flat had been purchased in 2002 before he became a parliament member, though he already was the Best Businessman of the Year two times. No, it is not bad that someone has a flat in Moscow. It is only important to prove that the money, which an average Belarus would have to save for 200 years to afford such a flat, were earned in an honest way, taxes were paid, no one sold goods for cash and transferred smaller sums through financial companies to pay less taxes. Who knows,” Anatoli Mitsura writes.

The blogger found interesting information in the register extract. The line with the address contains a code with numbers 643.

“It turns out that the ordinary Belarusian 'senator' has ordinary Russian citizenship.

He obtained it only recently, this May, and received his passport on June 9, a month earlier the arrest. It takes about 18 months to obtain Russian citizenship, so we can conclude that Vitali began to prepare documents for it as soon as he became a senator in 2012. Perhaps, he foresaw something bad and was preparing to flee, but failed,” the blogger writes.

“Obtaining Russian citizenship doesn't cancel Belarusian one. Formally, it doesn't violate the law 'On the status of a member of the House of Representative, a member of the Council of the Republic of the National Assembly of the Republic of Belarus' that requires Belarusian citizenship,” the blogger notes. “But we come to a question: Interests of what state does Russian citizen Vitali Kastahorau represent in the Belarusian 'parliament'? He surely had access to state secrets. Is it supposed that we don't have any secrets from the eastern neighbour? The sad experience of Ukraine says we need to be more careful to prevent the formation of the 'Mahilou People's Republic' on the border (which actually doesn't exist between the countries).”