One more Lukashenka’s lobbyist exposed in Austria

The Prosecutor’s Office of Austria investigates activities of an investor Martin Schlaff.

Through Telekom Austria company he bought a mobile service provider Velcom in Belarus, and MobilТel cellular communication company in Bulgaria, Radio Svaboda informs.

The first deal was executed through Alyaksandr Lukashenka’s Syrian friend, Id Samavi, and the second one through an Israeli businessman Mikhail Chernoy, who is reported to have ties to the Russian mafia.

Articles about that have appeared in Austrian media, Die Presse, Kurier, Profil and others.

The deal with Velcom, or rather preparation for resale of the Belarusian telecommunications company by Austrian Telecom Austria is considered to be one of the largest business operations of Schlaff. It has brought him more than Euro 200 mln.

A few months ago Austrian journalists published documents which prove that Schlaff’s deal with Velcom was not limited just to this sum.

A firm called Holdenhurst Limited, registered at Cyprus in the same year when Schlaff bought stocks of the Belarusian mobile service provider from Samavi, and resold them to the Austrian company, belonged to Schlaff for 100%, and received Euro 200,000 of “gray” fees for “consulting services” from Telecom Austria monthly for a year and a half.

Schlaff is a former citizen of the German Democratic Republic, he actively cooperated with the secret police, the Stasi. Late he immigrated to Israel. There he managed to establish strong ties with the local political and economic business elite, including Ariel Sharon and Avigdor Lieberman, who were accused of corruption later. Then he became a significant Austrian investor, among other things an owner of a trans-national network of casinos, Casinos Austria closely connected with the highest business and political circles of Europe.

Now the Austrian prosecutor’s office has charged him with fraud, theft, corruption, and among others, these charges are related to the acts of purchase and sale of Bulgarian, Serbian and Norwegian operators. Other Austrian officials and businessmen appear in the high profile corruption scandal of Telecom Austria. Among them is, for instance, Hubert Gorbach, a former Chancellor. After his salutary estimations to the presidential election in Belarus in 2010, where he had been invited by Minister Martynau as an observer and simply as “a honorary figure”, Austrian journalists started to call him Lukashenka’s lobbyist.

It was Hubert Gorbach who initiated purchase of Velcom for Telekom Austria. The first talks of the former Chancellor about the Belarusian mobile service provider were held back in 2004 in Vienna with participation of Syarhei Sidorski, who was the Belarusian Prime Minister then. By the way, it happened soon after Lukashenka and his entourage’s vacation in the Alps. Returning to that exclusive and scandalous vacation of Lukashenka in their articles, Austrian journalists call the richest man of Austria, Schlaff, one of its possible sponsors.

As the chairman of the State Property Committee of Belarus Ryhor Kuznyatsou in February 2008, in August2007 the Belarusian side sold its share in Velcom at $556 mln. The fact that Telecom Austria bought the Belarusian cellular communication company indirectly, through a Cyprian SB Telecom owned by Id Samavi, made it possible for the Belarusian authorities to sell Velcom within the framework of the national laws, without issuing a tender for it.