Vladlena Funk, involved in Zeltser’s case, goes in danger of life
- 12.03.2009, 14:40
Vladlena Funk, a citizen of Russia released from a penal colony, is to be kept in a temporary detention facility for 7 days more.
Nobody knows what is happening in prison at the moment.
Vladlena Funk, a citizen of Russia, was released at about 6 a.m. Officers of internal relations department of Chyhunachny district of Homel came to take her away from the correctional facility.
Now Vladlena Funk is in Homel temporary detention facility. Her lawyer Zmitser Harachka was said about that in the citizenship and migration department of the internal affairs department of Chyhunachny district of Homel, to which borough the women’s penal colony belongs. They also informed that all the documents of Funk had been forwarded to Homel directorate on citizenship and migration.
The lawyer had a meeting with his client. The meeting lasted for about an hour. As said by Harachka, the 31-year-old Vladlena feels well, but she is a little shocked after all these events. The Russian citizen confirmed that policemen took her from the colony in the morning. Without any explanations they took her into the temporary detention facility.
As the Charter’97 press-centre was told by Zmitser Harachka (Goryachko), the secretary of Zeltser is to be forcibly deported to Russia in the next few days.
“It has been decided to deport Vladlena Funk to Russia forcibly,” Harachka said. “She is to be put in a train under police escort and take to the nearest train station of the Russian Federation”.
As said by the lawyer, it can happen in a week. “I called an officer of citizenship and migration department of Homel police. They said the question of Vladlena Funk’s extradition is to be solved within this week. On Monday morning I can call and I would be told a date when she would be “banished”, as they said.”
The lawyer does not know still how Vladlena Funk would react to the news. “I have collected a parcel with food for her, and then I’ll learn about her reaction. I think she would be shocked again,” Zmitser Harachka said.
Besides, a stamp has been made in her passport which bans her entry to the territory of Belarus for 10 years.
Zmitser Harachka finds forcible deporting of Zeltser’s secretary unjustified, as Vladlena Funk is a citizen of the “union state” and has a right to stay on the territory of Belarus.
“Bruskova (Funk) is a citizen of Russia, and despite of the fact that she has served a sentence and is released, the procedure of expulsion is held in accordance with the same procedure as it is done with foreigners who had committed a crime at the territory of Belarus,” he noted.
The fact that Vladlena Funk will be kept in Belarus one week more causes serious misgivings. The woman was to be released today morning. No doubt she would leave Belarus immediately right after leaving the colony. The distance from Homel to the border of the Russian federation is 40 kilometres. It is 10 or 15 minutes trip in a train. Does it mean that the Belarusian authorities need to keep Zeltser’s secretary in isolation? Nobody knows what is happening to the women in the detention facility.
The US citizen Emanuel Zeltser and his secretary Vladlena Funk (Bruskova) were detained on March 12, 2008 and charged with gathering commercial information and using fake documents. Zeltser was sentenced to 3 years in a minimum security penal colony, and Vladlena Funk – to 1 year of imprisonment. They pleaded not guilty.
On October 31 the Supreme Court of Belarus upheld the verdict. All court trials were held behind the closed doors.
The US many times called upon the Belarusian authorities to release E. Zeltser on humanitarian grounds, and his health has seriously deteriorated behind the bars. The defence and family of E. Zeltser called the verdict to him a death sentence, because of his poor health. They believe that the prisoner can not survive until the end of the prison term.
Zeltser’s family blame with his arrest Badri Patarkatsishvili’s companion, Russian businessman Boris Berezovsky. According to them, he visited Minsk to take part in the trial and witness, and visited Zeltser in the KGB remand prison. Berezovsky and official Belarusian structures do not confirm and do not refute these reports.