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District judge refuses to release Uralkali CEO Baumgertner

A district judge in Minsk on Friday rejected an application by Vladislav Baumgertner`s lawyers to release the director general of Russian potash company Uralkali pending the investigation.

"The reason was explained to us, but we cannot speak about it," one of the lawyers, Dzmitry Harachka, told BelaPAN. When asked whether the defense team had requested Mr. Baumgertner`s release on bail, Mr. Harachka said that bail had not even been discussed.

He said that the ruling by Judge Natallya Pykina of the Partyzanski District Court would be appealed to the Minsk City Court on Monday. According to Mr. Harachka, his client`s state of health and detention conditions are "normal" at present. He said that personal items and a television had been passed to the detainee.

Mr. Baumgertner was arrested on August 26 as he was about to fly out of Minsk after a meeting with Belarusian Prime Minister Mikhail Myasnikovich.

Pavel Travulka, spokesman for the Investigative Committee of Belarus, told BelaPAN after the arrest that Mr. Baumgertner, who chaired the supervisory board of Belarusian Potash Company (BPC), was suspected of power abuse and so were Oleg Petrov, a member of the BPC`s supervisory board; Konstantin Solodovnikov, first deputy director general; Igor Yevstratov, deputy director general; Dmitry Samoilov, head of the freight department, and "other people."

A few days later, Belarusian authorities instituted criminal proceedings against Russian billionaire and Uralkali`s top shareholder Suleiman Kerimov.

The case is linked to Uralkali`s July 30 decision to de facto quit BPC, its joint trading arm with Belarusian potash giant Belaruskali. Minsk claims that the collapse of the Belarusian-Russian potash sales cartel has caused severe economic damage to Belarus.