BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS
DATE:
27/03/2008
Belarus KGB finally confirms arrest of known US lawyer two weeks ago
The State Security Committee of Belarus (KGB) has officially confirmed that Emanuel Zeltser and his secretary, Russian citizen Vladlena Funk, who was traveling with him, was arrested in Minsk on March 12, news agency BelaPAN reports, referring to the Belarus KGB spokesman Valery Nadtochayev. The two detained were charged under the Criminal Code's article that penalizes the deliberate use of counterfeit documents by a group of people, he said. The KGB initially declined to comment on the arrest of Zeltser and Funk.
Russian-born Zeltser, 54, who heads a non-governmental organization called the Russian-American Law Institute, was arrested after he arrived in the Belarusian capital city for meetings with clients. He has been held in the KGB detention center since then.
In 2001, Zeltser was a defense lawyer for Pavel Borodin, who is now state secretary of the Belarusian-Russian Union State, when he was arrested in New York City on money laundering charges. In 1995, Zeltser sued Inkombank, once Russia's second largest bank, in a US federal court, accusing it of misappropriating funds from depositors in collaboration with the Bank of New York. He previously worked for the bank, but claimed that he was dismissed from his post after initiating an investigation into evidence of theft and fraud, BelaPAN adds.
Source:
http://www.axisglobe.com/article.asp?article=1520
Archive
