Who paid for Belarusian dictator’s luxury holidays in Austria?

In 2004, leader of entrepreneurs Valer Levaneuski was thrown into prison for asking this question. Now the Austrian mass media are revealing the secret.

Journalist Erwin Roth raised the same question in the Vienna influential newspaper Die Presse. Roth supposes in his article that luxury holidays of the Belarusian ruler and his family in Tyrol in 2002 may have been paid through a secret account of the Austrian Olympic Committee, Radio Svaboda reports.

We remind that the Belarusian ruler went on holidays to Austria in early 2002 on an invitation of Leo Wallner, the then president of the Austrian Olympic Committee and general director of Casinos Austria. Later, Wallner returned a visit to Minsk on an invitation of the head of the Belarusian National Olympic Committee Alyaksandr Lukashenka.

According to Erwin Roth, his journalistic investigation was inspired by results of the audit in the Austrian Olympic Committee, published by weekly Format a few weeks ago. Roth has recently given Die Presse’s Sunday edition Presse am Sonntag a folder with tickets, receipts, and

certificates.

These documents provide information about the Belarusian ruler’s costly trip to the Austrian Alps and confirm the fact that the NOC of Austria had really opened a shady account in Raiffeisen Bank. This happened in 2001 on an initiative of Leo Wallner. On March 3, 2002, the Belarusian ruler and his large retinue landed in Austria. According to the journalist, a sum of 200,000 euros for a two-week holidays of the Belarusian guests was placed to the account.

The folder contains different hotel receipts, checks for renting ski equipment and renting bungalows for skiers. As the documents show, Lukashenka and his retinue stayed in two costly Alpine hotels.

According to the documents, the big companies, such as hotels, transport operators, and air companies usually sent bills to pay for their services to Gerhard Skoff, then Casinos Austria’s executive director and Leo Wallner’s second hand.

Was it profitable for the NOC of Austria to invite Lukashenka to the Alps? Journalist Erwin Roth thinks it wasn’t. In his view, the NOC bore no relation to organizing this trip. The things are different with Casinos Austria, the NOC’s official sponsor, and, as the journalist claims, “the Belarusian dictator’s unofficial cash office”.

Due to the fact that Leo Wallner was president of NOC and director of the casino network, a rather difficult for that time problem was solved. In 2002, the EU leadership banned official contacts with Belarusian ruler Lukashenka. He received the invitation to Austria as president of the Belarusian National Olympic Committee. It was Leo Wallner who initiated the unofficial invitation.

Answering Presse am Sonntag who was interested in this invitation, Wallner said: “We acted in the interests of the Austrian economy.” As if the Austrian business had needed more contacts with Eastern Europe.

As Wallner’s subordinate Skoff said, casinos and a range of other Austrian firms were interested in running business with 10-million people Belarus, so Lukashenka’s tour was very useful for certain Austrian firms. The businessmen, interested in cooperation with Belarus, paid for the holidays of Lukashenka and his family.

To a question “Who were they?” Wallner answered: “We don’t want to discuss this in public.”

But why hasn’t Casinos Austria, the company interested in cooperation with Belarus, opened any casinos in Minsk or other cities of this eastern European county? To get an answer to this question, Erwin Roth plans to show his materials to Austrian prosecutors. The journalist doesn’t exclude it may have been money laundering.

Scandalous publications regarding Lukashenka’s holidays in Austria in March 2oo2 and their financing have appeared today in other leading Austrian newspapers.

As Kurier newspaper writes, millions of euros were placed to the NOC secret account, opened by Lew Wallner in 2001. The prosecutor’s office of Austria has taken an interest in this account.

We remind that on September 7, 2004, the Leninski district court of Hrodna sentenced leader of Hrodna entrepreneurs Valer Levaneuski to two years of imprisonment in a medium security penal colony for “publicly causing offense to the president of Belarus”. The court ruled out that the phrase from a leaflet distributed ahead of demonstrations of entrepreneurs “come and say that you are against 'somebody' going on holiday skiing in Austria and having a good time at your cost” insulted honour and dignity of Alyaksandr Lukashenka