BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

14/02/2009

U.S. and Belarus in Dispute Over Inmate

By ELLEN BARRY

MOSCOW - In New York, a decade ago, a Russian emigre lawyer named Emanuel E. Zeltser turned up several times on the periphery of banking scandals. Now, Mr. Zeltser is an inmate in a Belarussian prison and is at the center of an 11-month dispute between Belarus and the United States.

Mr. Zeltser was arrested under mysterious circumstances last March, moments after he landed at the airport in Minsk, Belarus's capital. The Belarussian authorities charged him with industrial espionage and forgery and tried him in closed court against the protests of American diplomats.

Since then, American officials have been pressing for Mr. Zeltser's release on humanitarian grounds, saying he is gravely ill and in danger of dying in custody. A senior American diplomat traveled from Washington to Minsk last month to brief the Belarussian Supreme Court about issues arising from the case, a State Department official said.

"It's very exceptional," said Jonathan M. Moore, the United States charge d'affaires in Belarus. "This is the only time in my knowledge that a citizen of any country was arrested immediately upon arrival, held by the KGB, sentenced in a closed trial and has been held for so long when the state of his health is such a concern."

Mr. Zeltser's brother, Mark, a celebrated concert pianist, has spent $1 million pressing for his release, but he said the background to the case was byzantine enough to drive away reporters - "something so complicated," as he put it, "that deadline cannot be made."

Last year, Mr. Zeltser became involved in a legal battle with a Russian oligarch, Boris A. Berezovsky. At issue is the will of a Georgian billionaire named Badri Patarkatsishvili, Mr. Berezovsky's longtime partner. After Mr. Patarkatsishvili died suddenly in February, Mr. Zeltser came forward, saying Mr. Patarkatsishvili had asked him to draw up a will which made a step-cousin, Joseph Kay, executor.

Mr. Berezovsky and Mr. Patarkatsishvili's family members have challenged those claims. In March, after meeting with Mr. Berezovsky in London, Mr. Zeltser flew into Belarus on the Russian oligarch's plane and was promptly arrested by Belarus's Committee for State Security, or KGB. In an interview with the Georgian channel Rustavi-2 after the arrest, Mr. Berezovsky said that Mr. Zeltser was trying "to seize Badri's assets through faked documents."

Belarus would not allow American officials to monitor his trial last summer, which Mr. Moore called "especially bizarre and worrisome." He said no Belarussian government official had "ever justified" Mr. Zeltser's arrest.

Mr. Zeltser's brother contends that Mr. Berezovsky arranged his arrest with the Belarussian authorities. Lord Tim Bell, a London public relations executive and adviser to Mr. Berezovsky, calls the notion "just clearly nonsense." He said Mr. Berezovsky offered Mr. Zeltser a ride to Minsk because "he wanted to go there."

"We don't think anything he says is likely to have very much connection to the truth," Lord Bell said. "We think he's fabricated documents and fraudulent evidence."

Andrei A. Popov, a spokesman at the Belarussian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, would not answer questions about the case or suggest any official who could. Repeated inquiries sent through Bell Pottinger, Lord Bell's London-based public relations corporation, which represents Belarus, also got no response.

Mr. Zeltser is himself a controversial figure. He represented Inkombank, a Russian bank which collapsed in 1998, and then became embroiled in a bitter legal battle with its leadership. He also helped file a $2 billion shareholder lawsuit against the Bank of New York after it was charged with laundering money for its Russian partners.

When the Bank of New York scandal made headlines, material circulated by Mr. Zeltser and his associates figured prominently in news coverage. But former business associates accused Mr. Zeltser of having faked financial and legal documents, raising questions about his credibility.

Mr. Zeltser is now serving the 11th month of a three-year sentence, according to his lawyer, Dmitri Goryachko, who was compelled to sign a nondisclosure clause and so cannot discuss any details of the case. Belarus charged Mr. Zeltser and his secretary, Vladlena Funk, with possessing forged documents, then added charges of commercial espionage against them, as well as Mr. Kay.

In August, Mr. Zeltser and Ms. Funk were convicted of both charges. Mr. Zeltser was acquitted of charges that he possessed narcotics.

Consular officials say Mr. Zeltser's health has declined shockingly. Albert Benchabbat, a doctor who visited from the United States this month, reported that he has "a clear and high risk of sudden death from heart attack" if he is not transferred to the United States for bypass surgery, and that continued incarceration would be "equivalent to a death sentence." Amnesty International has also called for his release.

Meanwhile, the fight over Mr. Patarkatsishvili's property has not abated. The oligarch's wife and heirs have filed a lawsuit against Mr. Zeltser in the United States District Court in Manhattan, alleging that the will was faked and the assets should be split between them. Lord Bell, meanwhile, said Mr. Berezovsky was "50/50" with Mr. Patarkatsishvili and is entitled to a portion of his wealth. He described the oligarch's legal planning as "not clever."

"It was very Georgian," he said. "Georgians don't sign contracts. They shake hands."

Papers filed by Mr. Zeltser's defense in the New York case estimated Mr. Patarkatsishvili's assets at $15 billion. Mr. Patarkatsishvili's family is also contesting Mr. Kay's purchase of a controlling share of one of the oligarch's key assets - Imedi, one of Georgia's most important independent news sources.

Source:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/15/world/europe/15zeltser.html?ref=world

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