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American lawyer Zeltser facing fate of political prisoner, legal expert says

US lawyer Emanuel Zeltser is facing a fate of a political prisoner, Ihar Rynkevich, a legal expert who is deputy chairman of the Belarusian Social Democratic Party "Hramada," said in an interview with BelaPAN.

Mr. Zeltser will be used as a "small coin" in Minsk's bargaining with Washington, Mr. Rynkevich said. "Having arrested Zeltser, nomenclature clans in Belarus and abroad are pursuing their own financial interests, with the Belarusian judiciary used for squaring accounts. Approval for the arrest was given by the "highest ranks;" these, not the prosecutor's office or the court, will decide what judgment should be pronounced."

Emanuel Zeltser, a New York-based specialist in Russian law and organized crime, was arrested in March together with his secretary, Russian national Vladlena Funk, upon their arrival in Minsk in mid-March.

Their trial began at the Minsk City Court on July 30.

Mr. Zeltser and Ms. Funk are facing charges of business espionage and the use of fake documents. The man also is to answer a charge of smuggling illegal drugs into Belarus.

Mr. Zeltser and his secretary were charged with using fake documents when they were arrested. In May, Mr. Zeltser was charged with drug smuggling over medications that he brought into Belarus.

When commenting on the charges, Mr. Rynkevich said that it is very difficult to prove a person guilty of business espionage without the assistance of "international organizations such as Interpol or foreign counterintelligence agencies." He suggested that a lack of evidence against the pair could have prompted the country's authorities to hold the hearing behind closed doors.

Mr. Rynkevich accused the Belarusian authorities of using Mr. Zeltser to take revenge on the United States, recalling that Mr. Zeltser is a national of the United States and that his arrest came amid sharply deteriorating relations between Minsk and Washington.

He noted that "violence" had been used against the accused in custody in breach of international treaties signed by Belarus.

"This is yet another shameful case for the Belarusian judiciary for which more than one generation of Belarusian legal experts will blush," Mr. Rynkevich said.

Mr. Zeltser can be handed over to Washington if the stance of the latter on Belarus softens, he suggested. "Belarus cannot have any grounds for holding him here except for the protection of someone else's interests."

Mr. Rynkevich expressed a high opinion of the pair's defense counsel Dzmitry Harachka, who acted as defense counsel for former presidential candidate Alyaksandr Kazulin. He noted that Mr. Harachka was an expert in economic crime, expressing hope that his experience of defending Dr. Kazulin would help him "cope with the political and diplomatic aspects of the cases."