Businessman Yuri Chizh, a long-time ally of Belarusian strongman Alexander Lukashenko, has been arrested for suspected tax evasion, authorities said Sunday. Chizh, 52, is suspected of the "evasion of tax and fee payments on an especially large scale," said Dmitry Pobyarzhin, a spokesman for the KGB, Belarus' security service.
Pobyarzhin added that Chizh had been arrested along with "a group of people" suspected of complicity in the alleged crimes, without disclosing the date . Chizh - who serves as the chairman of FC Dinamo Minsk and is considered one of the former Soviet republic's most influential businesspeople - landed on an EU sanctions list in 2012 for his financial support of Lukashenko's repressive regime. Chizh was among those who applied to the European Court of Justice to have their assets unfrozen.
The court ruled in October that the European Union - which had frozen the businessman's assets - had failed to prove Chizh had financially supported Lukashenko's regime such that his inclusion on the sanctions "is not justified".