DATE:
31/10/2008
The Associated Press
MINSK, Belarus - A lawyer says Belarus' highest court has rejected an appeal by a U.S. lawyer serving a three-year prison sentence for commercial espionage.
Emanuel Zeltser has been jailed in Belarus since being detained March 12 at the Minsk airport. A Minsk court convicted him in August and sentenced him to three years in prison.
His defense lawyer, Dmitry Goryachko, says Belarus's Supreme Court rejected his appeal Friday. Goryachko called the decision, taken behind closed doors, "political, not legal."
Zeltser is a lawyer whose clients have included late Georgian billionaire Badri Patarkatsishvili. He is an expert on organized crime and money laundering, particularly in former Soviet republics.
The United States has protested his imprisonment.
Source:
http://www.centredaily.com/business/story/936186.html
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