New Vision Clinic Owner Is Called Back To Belarus

On September 21, the Investigative Committee terminated the criminal prosecution of Aleh Kauryhin, the founder of the New Vision clinic network.

This information was confirmed to tut.by by the businessman and his lawyer Dzianis Kisel.

The criminal prosecution has been stopped for the absence of the event of a crime, and also in connection with the law coming into force, which eliminates the punishability of the act, the reasoning part of the IC decision says. The businessman’s defense was insisting on terminating the criminal prosecution in 2016, when appeals were sent to the IC and the Prosecutor General's Office.

"Admittedly, we expected a competent decision on terminating the criminal process much earlier, but despite the fact that the period of the actual assessment of the defense's arguments was more than a year and a half, we are satisfied with the result of the work done. The true reasons for such a long period of delay are unknown to us, but according to the official position of the investigation they are based on the requirements of the Article 18 of the Criminal Procedure Code of the Republic of Belarus, which obliges the criminal investigative body to take all measures for comprehensive, complete and objective investigation of the criminal case circumstances," – Kisel says.

Aleh Kauryhin believes that "there was a falsification of two criminal cases, which collapsed in the result." "All this happened with the direct participation of some investigators in the interests of third parties. However, they were not punished, so it's too early to call it quits. Am I going to file a counterclaim? Everyone knows that I always pay back accurately and elegantly," – the businessman wrote in the commentary.

The founder of the New Vision clinic network regrets that he has lost the opportunity to live in Belarus, and the country has lost large investment projects and new jobs that he wanted to create. "The city [Minsk] allocated a site for the construction of a ten-story maternity hospital, the design work was under way, money from England came to the company’s account. The maternity hospital was to be built in 2013. But then "werewolves in epaulets" appeared. Now the suitcase with the project is gathering dust in the garage, tens of millions of pounds sterling returned to the English bank. I work in another country, where I'm valued," – the businessman noted.

Aleh Kauryhin has been living in Vilnius since 2012. When the prosecution is stopped, does he think of returning to Belarus? "Belarus is my DNA. I gave 20 years to the Belarusian ophthalmology. I constantly work with clinics in Belarus, this is the business of my life. My friends live here, here is the grave of my father ... How can I not return?" – Kauryhin noted. Dzianis Kisel estimates the risk of returning his client to Belarus as a "minimal" one.

We remind that in 2013, the Investigative Committee instituted criminal proceedings against the director and chief accountant of the New Vision clinic for the illegal importation of medical equipment. Soon there appeared questions to clinic founder of the Aleh Kauryhin. The businessman was suspected that in 2005-2011, he, "at an unidentified time (...) in an unidentified place (...), organized with the help of unidentified persons" an illegal movement of Nidek and Torcon ophthalmic equipment across the customs border of Belarus "without registration certificates and thus limited to transportation, "with concealment from customs control and non-declaring it in the manner prescribed by law, which caused damage to the state in the amount of at least 40 million non-redenominated rubles. In 2016, the IC stopped the criminal prosecution of the New Vision top managers. Kauryhin has been trying to get the case closed up to now.