"Arms Dealer Serykh Could Have Kidnapped Kotov to Hand Him Over to Belarusian Special Services and Gain Lukashenka's Attention" — Stanislau Ivashkevich
Investigators claim that former Belarusian official and exiled politician Anatol Kotau was handed over to Russian special services near the coast of unrecognized Abkhazia. Stanislau Ivashkevich, head of the Belarusian Investigative Center, explained to "Belsat" why he is inclined to consider Kotau's disappearance a planned kidnapping.
Anatol Kotau. Photo: Mira Lesyalishskaya / Belsat
Ivashkevich says that almost all figures in the investigation are people connected with Belarusian and Russian security structures, and the arms business. Even the yacht itself — one way or another, all threads lead to Belarusian Yury Serykh.
He is a player in the arms trade market who is gaining influence, Ivashkevich explains.
Did Kotau understand that the yacht was going to Sochi, even though he was on an international wanted list?
Ivashkevich says there is no confirmation of whether Kotau realized where they were going to sail, or if he even knew they would sail anywhere on the yacht.
Theoretically, if Kotau passed passport control, it didn't mean he was going to travel somewhere. It could mean that the yacht arrived with foreign passengers who had not cleared customs. To board them (on this yacht, for example), he would have to pass customs and border control, even if he wasn't going to leave.
There are also several testimonies that he was unconscious for some other reason when the yacht approached the Abkhazian shore. Some say he drank too much and was sleeping, other sources say he could have been unconscious for a different reason.
Russian authorities, like Belarusian ones, do not admit that Kotau is with them. And on the one hand, the fact that Russian authorities received Kotau makes his murder more complicated. On the other hand, near the port of Ochamchira, from where the patrol boat that took Kotau departed, there is a large plot of land belonging to Viktar Sheiman. Nothing is built there, but if one imagines the worst-case scenario, a body could be buried there, says Ivashkevich.
Ivashkevich believes that the most probable version is a planned kidnapping, although different versions have the right to exist, but they leave questions.
For example, if it were an agent extraction, those who carried it out would have expected journalists to uncover how Kotau disappeared. This is unlikely, Ivashkevich believes, because the tracks were covered up, and it was not at all obvious that journalists would be able to uncover anything.
Moreover, they exposed previously unknown significant infrastructure for arms trafficking, for payments through a company associated with Yury Serykh. They also exposed a yacht that, with high probability, now belongs to Yury Serykh.
Ivashkevich suggests: the fact that this infrastructure was used at all in Kotau's kidnapping and that much of this new structure (for investigators) was revealed, may indicate that Yury Serykh, as a rising star in the Belarusian arms business, decided to score points by bringing Kotau as a trophy to his bosses like Viktar Sheiman or Lukashenka, to draw attention to himself by luring his acquaintance.
That is, Serykh could have carried out a special operation and kidnapped Kotau to hand him over to Belarusian special services and gain the attention of Aliaksandr Lukashenka, Ivashkevich believes.
Because Kotau's activities were focused on sports — both in Belarus and afterwards in exile. And he also played a role in sanctions being imposed on Belarusian athletes (those who supported the regime), for Belarus's participation in the attack on Ukraine and for repression against other athletes who, at one time, spoke out against it.
Ivashkevich was asked about the recent alleged restoration of Anatol Kotau's Telegram account, which disappeared a few minutes later. Does he know anything about this?
Ivashkevich replied that they had already checked: this Telegram belongs to another person in Poland who has no connection to the story.