Detention of BelaPAN director general extended by two more months

Ms. Lieŭšy­na and Mr. Navažy­laŭ were ear­li­er charged with tax eva­sion under Part Two of the Crim­i­nal Code’s Arti­cle 243.

The Inves­tiga­tive Com­mit­tee of Belarus announced on August 27 that it had opened a tax eva­sion case against Ms. Lieŭšy­na and Mr. Navažy­laŭ, as well as against for­mer Deputy Direc­tor Gen­er­al Andrej Ali­ak­san­draŭ, and “oth­er per­sons.”

The crim­i­nal case was opened under Part Two of the Crim­i­nal Code’s Arti­cle 243, which penal­izes tax eva­sion “result­ing in large-scale dam­age” and car­ries a max­i­mum penal­ty of sev­en years in prison.

The agency said that the exec­u­tives had “know­ing­ly” fal­si­fied infor­ma­tion in tax doc­u­ments in June 2018-Jan­u­ary 2021, evad­ing more than 100,000 rubels in tax­es.

Mr. Ali­ak­san­draŭ was arrest­ed this past Jan­u­ary. He was ini­tial­ly charged with financ­ing mass dis­or­der for alleged­ly help­ing pro­test­ers pay court-imposed fines. He was lat­er charged with high trea­son.

Mr. Navažy­laŭ, Ms. Lieŭšy­na and Bela­PAN accoun­tant Kacia­ry­na Boje­va were arrest­ed on August 18. On the same day, law enforce­ment offi­cers raid­ed BelaPAN’s office and seized the company’s servers, mak­ing its web­site inac­ces­si­ble.

Ms. Boje­va was released on August 28.

In June 2018, the State Con­trol Com­mit­tee opened a tax eva­sion case against Bela­PAN founder and then Direc­tor Gen­er­al Alieś Lipaj. The case was dropped short­ly after he died in August 2018.

Mr. Navažy­laŭ had served as BelaPAN’s direc­tor gen­er­al since June 2018 before resign­ing from the posi­tion and leav­ing the com­pa­ny in Jan­u­ary 2021. Ms. Lieŭšy­na took over as direc­tor gen­er­al on Jan­u­ary 18, 2021.