BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

30/06/2009

Belarus frees imprisoned American lawyer

President of former Soviet country pardons man in jail for espionage

MINSK, Belarus - An ailing American lawyer who was imprisoned in Belarus last year on charges of using fake documents and attempted industrial espionage has walked free after a presidential pardon.

Emanuel Zeltser, a 55-year-old diabetic, was sentenced to three years in prison in August 2008 after being convicted on charges his supporters called politically motivated.

In November, Zeltser was placed in a prison hospital after arriving at a penal colony in eastern Belarus, where he was denied medicine, according to lawyers.

On leaving the prison clinic in the eastern town of Mogilyov on Tuesday night, Zeltser said: "I am glad about my freedom."

Earlier in the day, President Alexander Lukashenko signed a decree pardoning Zeltser.

Belarus and its authoritarian leader are currently on a drive to court better political and economic ties with the West, and Washington had said Zeltser's release would help the process along.

A U.S. congressional delegation headed by Democratic Sen. Benjamin Cardin of Maryland was told of the release announcement during a meeting Tuesday with Lukashenko.

Zeltser's lawyer, Dmitry Goryachko, said that he had informed his client about the decision during a visit Tuesday to the prison hospital, in the town of Mogilyov, 125 miles east of the capital, Minsk.

Source:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31664521/ns/world_news-europe/

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