Trial of American lawyer Zeltser scheduled to open on July 30

The trial of American lawyer Emanuil Zeltser is scheduled to open at the Minsk City Court on July 30, said his defense counsel Dzmitry Harachka.

Zeltser is accused of drug smuggling and business espionage. He was arrested in Minsk on 12 March 2008.

He has been held at the KGB pre-trial detention center. Some observers linked his arrest to a legal battle for the assets of the late Georgian billionaire Badri Patarkatsishvili.

Zeltser, an emigrant from the former Soviet Union, is considered an expert in organized crime and money laundering in Russia and the former Soviet republics. In 2000 and 2001, he provided legal advice for Pavel Borodin, state secretary of the Belarusian-Russian Union, after the latter was arrested in New York.



Interfax