DPM Vasil Zharko interrogated, let off in massive corruption probe

Vice Prime Minister Vasil Zharko has not been detained contrary to media reports as of 11 July.

Zharko is at his desk, the press service of the Council of Ministers reports.

Vasil Zharko was the Minister of Health before he was promoted to the post of Deputy Prime Minister. KGB’s interest in him can be explained by the so called ‘doctors’ case’ - more than a dozen officials connected with the state purchases in the sphere of healthcare were detained in Belarus several days before.   

Deputy Minister of Health Ihar Lasitski (his name can sometimes be seen in the documents connected with public tenders) and director of the scientific research centre for traumatic surgery and orthopedics Alyaksandr Byaletski were detained on 9 July. KGB arrested businessman Syarhei Shakutsin (director of the company Iskamed – one of the major pharmaceutical enterprises in Belarus) on 10 July.

Vasil Zharko was interrogated, TUT.by reports. It was probably connected with ‘the doctors’ case’. However, he has been let off.

He did not know anything about the corruption and did not expect it to be ‘large-scale’, the vice PM announced at the end of June. The system of state purchases will be improved in Belarus and the government will come up with ‘some new algorithm’, Zharko said.