Austrians investigate Lukashenka’s drinking bouts at their resorts

Politicians and businessmen who had compromised themselves by friendship with Lukashenka have come under fire.

Influential Austrian media “Kurier”, “Die Presse” and others continue to publish critical articles against the foreign political agency of the country related to issuing diplomatic passports to former federal officials, politicians, businessmen, who among other things had compromised themselves by “friendship” with Alyaksandr Lukashenka, Radio Svaboda informs.

A former president of the Austrian Olympic Committee and an owner of a casino chain Leo Wallner has become one more character of “Die Presse”. Journalists of “Die Presse” attract attention to the following detail: last time the term of validity of Wallner’s diplomatic passport was extended by the Austrian Foreign Ministry in July 2010, exactly amid the high profile scandal related to the “gray cash” of the Austrian National Olympic Committee and payments from it for the vacation of the Belarusian dictator in the Alps in February 2002.

As noted by “Die Presse”, Wallner had organized a real holiday for the Belarusian dictator at the expense of Austrian tax-payers, during which almost every whim of high Belarusian guests was yielded to. It included staying in exclusive hotels, visits to restaurants and casinos, skiing lessons, a so-called “corporate party” starring DJ Ötzi (the stage name of Gerhard Friedle), organising hockey tournaments between the team of the Belarusian dictator and local teams, call-out of helicopter service, when Lukashenka’s hip was injured at a ski slope, visit to a private medical institution, charter flights and so on. In accordance with the accounts previously published by Austrian mass media earlier, 200,000 Euro have been spent on the holiday of Lukashenka and his retinue. The money had been allegedly paid by some Austrian companies. The names of the companies are not revealed up till now.

“We had been acting for the good of the Austrian economy,” in such a way the former head of the Austrian Olympic Committee Leo Wallner explained his outstanding hospitality to the dictator Lukashenka and his entourage, the people who blatantly violate human rights, and any contacts with whom are officially boycotted by the European Union.

As noted by “Die Presse”, with the help of the ideas of Olympic diplomacy, and the high level of cooperation between the national business and sport, Wallner managed to go around the sanctions and entry ban against the Belarusian ruler accepted European countries. Though the situation is scandalous, Leo Wallner continues to “travel around the world” with a red Austrian diplomatic passport, which is unacceptable in itself, Austrian mass media write.

Earlier “Kurier” wrote about an owner of a diplomatic passport Hubert Gorbach,a former Transport Minister and Vice Chancellor of Austria, and presently “Gorbach Consulting” business manager and “Wintertechnik Engeneering” advisor. The both companies are engaged in a number of projects related to winter resorts in Russia and Belarus. Journalists are indignant as Lukashenka’s regime’s lobbyist owns a diplomatic passport. In December 2010 Gorbach was invited as an honorary guest to observe the presidential election in Belarus and gave a highly positive evaluation of it. And he characterized the actions of special services against peaceful demonstrators in the following way: “Everyone has a right of self-defence.”