On Friday the American lawyer Immanuel Seltzer, arrested in Minsk on 12 March (see issue #43 of Novaya Gazeta), was brought the third accusation. This time the investigative department of KGB has started a criminal case on the count of commercial espionage. This time the case is started not only against the lawyer and his secretary Vladlena Funk, but also against the American citizen Josef Kay, who is the step-brother of Badri Patarkatsishvili and a client of Immanuel Seltzer.      

So at the moment the ill American lawyer, who came to Minsk on the plane belonging to Boris Berezovsky and was arrested right at the airport, is charged by the local KGB with the use of forged documents, illegal drug traffic and commercial espionage. The medicines, found with Mr. Seltzer, that he has been taking for 15 years, are referred to two articles of the Byelorussian Criminal Code – that’s smuggling of drugs and traffic of drugs. So there is a set of three criminal cases and four articles of accusation.    

Shortly before announcing a new accusation, the arrested was allowed to be visited by an American doctor who stated after the examination that refusal of taking necessary medication might cause the fatal outcome.  

The criminal case about forged documents has a status of state secrecy. That indicates to a task of non-bringing the case to the trial but just keeping Seltzer in prison as long as possible. This is why the new accusation has been brought shortly before the trial. Now Byelorussian KGB has a few months. It appears that before this term is over the sharing out of the Badri Patarkatsishvili’s heritage will have been finished.