Arrested US lawyer Emanuel Zeltser, his secretary to start studying case on June 30
10- 21.06.2008, 14:23
Arrested US lawyer Emanuel Zeltser and his secretary Vladlena Funk are expected to start studying papers in the criminal case against them on June 30, the pair’s lawyer, Dzmitry Harachka.
Mr. Zeltser and Ms. Funk were arrested upon their arrival in Minsk on March 12. The two were put into the KGB detention center and charged with using fake documents.
Neither the KGB nor the pair’s counsel would disclose details of the case. According to Mr. Harachka, the case has the status of a state secret.
On May 27, the lawyer was charged with drug smuggling over medications that he brought into Belarus.
Meanwhile, Mr. Zeltser’s brother, Mark, has received a letter from the Prosecutor General’s Office. In reply to his April 9 appeal over the alleged denial of vital medicines to his ill brother in the KGB detention center, the office says that Mr. Zeltser is fit to stay in jail.
“After being put in the detention center, Mr. Zeltser was examined by a doctor. Following the examination the doctor prescribed treatment for Mr. Zeltser and he is given the prescribed medications regularly,” the letter reads.
Mr. Harachka has questioned the report, saying that Mr. Zeltser was not examined by a doctor and no treatment was prescribed in fact.
According to the lawyer, Mr. Zeltser complained last week that his health condition was "disastrous."
In particular, he has been denied his medicines on the grounds that they are “psychotropic substances brought into Belarus illegally.”
Mark Zeltser claims that self-exiled Russian businessman Boris Berezovsky orchestrated the arrest of Mr. Zeltser over the assets of the late Georgian billionaire Badri Patarkatsishvili. When Mr. Patarkatsishvili died, his assets became the subject of a dispute pitting the widow backed by Mr. Berezovsky, against his step cousin, Joseph Kay, who is represented by Mr. Zeltser. On May 14, the Tbilisi City Court in Georgia recognized Joseph Kay as a legitimate executor of the late Georgian billionaire’s assets.
