American lawyer Zeltser's defense counsel complains to Supreme Court about delay in pardon decision
1- 12.06.2009, 14:26
The defense counsel of imprisoned Emanuel Zeltser has complained to the Supreme Court of Belarus about foot-dragging over the American lawyer's possible release under this year’s amnesty law.
As a U.S. citizen, I for one an hoping that Emanuel Zeltser will be granted release under the amnesty signed into law by President Alexandre Lukashenko. Mr. Zeltser is entitled to his right to due process of law in a U.S. court of law. He must be held accountable for his failure to preserve the Deed of Appointment and Letter of Wishes he alleged Badri Patarkatsishvili executed on the evening of 14 November 2008 at or about 11:00 p.m. under a street light, on a corner, outside of the restaurant where he was dining with dinner guests, none of whom recall Mr. Patarkatsishvili interrupting to execute.
ReplyThe estate documents Emanuel Zeltser and his secretary, Vladlena Funk, were charged with possessing are missing. Vanished.! Mr. Zeltser did not have them on his person when he entered Belarus. Ms. Funk alleges in her recent interview with Chapter 97 that the estate documents submitted into evidence were computer scanned copies of the missing executed original Deed of Appointment and Letter of Wishes.
Truth be known, no one is admitting to ever having seen an original pen and ink estate documents containing the signature of Mr. Patarkatsishvili. Joseph Kay, the alleged executor of Mr. Patarkatsishvili's fortune, has never seen the original estate documents. Nor did he ever ask to see them. Mr. Zeltser refused to allow Inna Gudavadze and her defense counsel, Lord Philip Goldsmith, and Lord Goldsmith's legal defense team, their right to see them. In fact, Mr. Zeltser has denied everyone, including courts of law, to see them.
A criminal investigation is has been initiated by the U.S. Department of Justice against Mr. Zeltser who is believed to have transposed an original signature of Mr. Patarkatsishvili from a document Mr. Patarkatsishvili had executed that Mr. Zeltser had stored on his computer onto the Deed of Appointment and Letter of Wishes. The signature on the two estate documents is a copy of an authentic signature of Mr. Patarkatsishvili. The estate documents, not the signature, are the forgeries. They were never executed by Mr. Patarkatsishvili. The forged estate documents were notarized by Alexei Fishkin, a notary in the employment of Mr. Zeltser who is still in Mr. Zeltser's employment manning his office during his imprisonment in Belarus. .
Boris Berezovsky and Inna Gudavadze accused Messres. Zeltser and Kay of forging the missing estate documents. Yet, as with the Belarusian Prosecutor General and the Belarus Supreme Court, Mr. Berezovsky and Ms. Gudavadze have accused Messrs. Zeltser and Kay of forging the signature of Mr. Patarkatsishvili they themselves have never seen. The Tbilisi City Court of Georgia authenticated Mr. Patarkatsishvili's signature on the computer scanned copies of the estate documents. Contrary to the Tbilisi City Court, the U.S. District Court, Southern District Court of New York ordered Mr. Zeltser to surrender to the court the original executed estate pen and inked estate document estate documents for forensic testing. But the original executed estate documents are now missing. They are missing because Mr. Patarkatsishvili never existed them.
In a U.S. court of law, you cannot convict a person of forgery if you do have the document the individual is accused of forging. Mr. Fishkin, the notary who notarized the original estate documents containing the transposed signatures of Mr. Patarkatsishvili onto the estate documents, will undoubtedly enter into a plea agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice in exchange for a reduce sentence. Mr. Zeltser will face criminal charges in the U.S. when and if he returns.
If convicted, his prison term will not be for a mere three-years as it is in Belarus. The term he is likely to face is seven-to-ten years in a Federal penitentiary where he will not be allowed to serve out his sentence in the comfort of a prison hospital he has been accorded in Belarus. Nor will he be assigned a staff of four-to-five medical examiners, much less allowed access to a private physician. Sweeping cuts in medical services to prisoners have been enacted in the U.S. Mr. Zeltser will be integrated into the general population of the prison with hard core criminals and assigned to force labor.
Neither the U.S. Department of State nor the high priced lobbyists retained to launch a campaign of false imprisonment, torture and human rights abuses will intervene on Mr. Zeltser's behalf. There will be no letter writing campaign by U.S. senators and congressmen accusing President Barack of torture and human rights abuses or calls for his release on humanitarian grounds. Mr. Zeltser will rue the day he was released and returned to the U.S., where prison conditions for convicted felons are far harsher then in Belarus.