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Minsk court sentences American lawyer to prison

American lawyer Emanuel Zeltser on August 11 was sentenced to three years in a low-security correctional institution by the Minsk City Court.

He was found guilty of attempted industrial espionage and the use of “knowingly false official documents,” sentenced to 32 months on the former charge and six months on the latter.

Mr. Zeltser's secretary, Russian national Vladlena Funk, was sentenced to one year in a low-security correctional institution by the Belarusian court, found guilty of the same offenses.

The court dropped a charge of smuggling illegal drugs that was brought against the American lawyer over medications that he had on him when he arrived in Minsk.

No details of the closed-door hearing that began on July 30 are known.

The defense counsel, Dzmitry Harachka, told reporters outside the court that the pair were set to appeal against the sentences to the Supreme Court, expressing little optimism over the outcome.

The accusations are "absurd," as there was no evidence to support the prosecution case and there is not any, he said. "I feel ashamed for the Belarusian judiciary," he said.

Mr. Harachka expressed concern that Mr. Zeltser suffering from severe health problems could not survive the prison term. The sentence is tantamount to the death penalty, he said.

Mark Zeltser, brother of the American lawyer, claims that Russia's self-exiled oligarch Boris Berezovsky orchestrated the arrest of Emanuel Zeltser over the assets of the late Georgian billionaire Badri Patarkatsishvili. When Mr. Patarkatsishvili died, his assets became the subject of a dispute pitting the widow backed by Mr. Berezovsky, against his step cousin, Joseph Kay, who was represented by Mr. Zeltser.

On May 14, the Tbilisi City Court in Georgia recognized Joseph Kay as a legitimate executor of the late Georgian billionaire’s assets.

Mr. Zeltser and his secretary were arrested this past March upon their arrival in Minsk and held in the detention center of the KGB (Committee for State Security).

According to Mark Zeltser, Boris Berezovsky was in Minsk last week to testify at the trial. Neither the Belarusian Prosecutor General's Office nor the KGB would comment the report.