“I’ve even seen him. A tall, bald man,” the prisoner said, with a description that matches Dornau’s physical traits. “He came once in his car with German registration. He came into the shelter where we were picking onions together with hired workers.”
Dornau did not respond to multiple requests for comment by POLITICO on Tuesday.
He has represented the far-right populist AfD party in the Saxony parliament in eastern Germany since 2019 and has come under scrutiny for his business dealings in Belarus, a Russia-friendly dictatorship ruled with an iron fist by Lukashenko.
Dornau was ordered to pay a fine of €20,862 by the Saxony parliament last month for failing to reveal his involvement in Zybulka-Bel. The company was registered in Belarus in October 2020, even as pro-democracy protests roiled the country.
As of Tuesday, there are more than 1,300 political prisoners in Belarus, according to the Belarusian human rights organization Viasna.
Belarus has been targeted by waves of sanctions by the European Union over the years, most recently in August for ongoing internal repression and human rights violations.