The Supreme Court decided to release Evgeny Adamov after 2 days of hearings of the appeal of Adamov's lawyers.
Photo: Grigory Tambulov
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Evgeny Adamov Sits Out
// Former minister of atomic energy will wait for the trial out of prison
Former minister of atomic energy Evgeny Adamov was released yesterday. 67-year-old former minister spent nearly 15 months in custody. However, he will soon face the court for charges of embezzlement and abuse of office.
Evgeny Adamov’s wife, daughter, grandson, lawyer Timofey Gridnev and journalists waited for him by the gates of the pretrial detention center where he was kept after a similar prison in Bern, where he had been from May 2 to December 30, 2005.
Adamov said he has already signed the recognizance not to leave. He can travel within Moscow and Moscow region, but he needs permission to travel farther. He might need this permission soon, because he intends to visit the U.S. to attend the hearing of the “American” case. He was charged with embezzlement of $9 million, and arrested in Switzerland on the international order signed by US prosecutor, in spring 2005. Then, however, Russia initiated a case against Adamov as well, and Switzerland decided to extradite the former minister to Russia, and not the U.S.
Russian Supreme Court ruled to release Adamov, favoring the appeal of his lawyers. They contested the ruling of the Moscow City Court which extended his detention until August 8, that is up to 14 months. The hearing in the Supreme Court lasted 2 days, while usually it takes them only 2 hours to make similar decisions.
The Friday’s hearing brought the change of the judge. Judge Shurygin took recusation, and was replaced by Judge Anokhin. Adamov’s lawyers entered recusation to the new judge and to Prosecutor Anatoly Bashmakov.
However, Bashmakov objected that it was a new hearing and a new composition of the court, thus there was no grounds for the recusations. Bashmakov also announced that the criminal case charging former minister of atomic energy Evgeny Adamov, former director of Troitsky institute for innovation and nuclear research Vyacheslav Pismenny and former director general of Tekhsnabexport Revmir Fraishtut with embezzlement and abuse of office was passed to Zamoskvoretsky District Court of Moscow.
Then Adamov’s lawyers informed the court that they had addressed the Prosecutor General’s Office with the request “to initiate a criminal case against judge of the Moscow City Court Sharapova who issued an a priori illegal ruling on May 23 to extend the detention of Adamov till August 8. The lawyers claimed this ruling was illegal because it is allowed to keep the defendant in prison for longer than 1 year only if he/she did not have enough time to read the files concerning his/her case. Adamov finished reading the documents (the total of 30 volumes) on May 17.
Judge Anokhin declined recusations of himself and of Prosecutor Bashmakov. Then the court retired to the consultation room, and returned about half an hour later, announcing a ruling which cancelled that of the Moscow City Court. Soon afterwards, the order to release Adamov was delivered to the prison where he was kept.
The fact that the Supreme Court actually admitted the mistake made by the Moscow City Court, and carried out the decision immediately (it usually takes a few days or even a week), is the evidence that the entire approach to Adamov’s case has changed. Besides, the attitude to the case might have changed after Vladimir Ustinov’s team had left the Prosecutor General’s Office.
Alek Akhundov
All the Article in Russian as of July 22, 2006
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