KYIV. Aug 16 (Interfax) - Belarusian border guards did not apprehend Petro Melnyk, a former head of the Ukrainian National State Tax Service University, and did not hand him over to Ukraine, the Ukrainian State Border Service reported.
"Belarus has not apprehended Melnyk. Therefore, nobody has handed him over to us," a Border Service spokesperson told Interfax.
He called media reports regarding Melnyk's detention inaccurate.
It was reported earlier that Melnyk, who had been charged with bribery and placed under house arrest pending trial in Ukraine, escaped in an unknown direction.
The Ukrainian online weekly tyzhden.ua reported earlier with reference to Mikhail But-Gusaim, a spokesman to the chief of Belarus's Pinsk Border Department, that Melnyk had been apprehended at the Belarusian border checkpoint of Upper Terebezhov and handed over to Ukrainian border guards.