Emanuel Zeltser has crammed his heavily shorn foot down his throat in an interview published by the Belarus news agency BelaPAN, the 4th of July. Either that or he seriously underestimates the critical capacities of the average human. That most people are badly informed by personal inertia or understandable disinterest is one thing but knocking common sense is another.

American lawyer Emanuel Zeltser who has recently been released from Belarus' prison confirmed that he had been prosecuted over assets of Badri Patarkatsishvili, the late Georgian billionaire.

That Mr. Zeltser did go to Belarus at the behest of Mr. Kay for matters concerning Patarkatsashvili's estate is well established. Exactly what assets remains a mote question as Patarkatsashvili dabbled in many endeavours ranging from banking to oil.

In an interview with BelaPAN, Mr. Zeltser said that he had been accused of forging Mr. Patarkatsishvili's will, with the widow and Russia's self-exiled oligarch Boris Berezovsky pressing for the charges. "The investigators found a copy of this will on my computer, printed it out and charged me with possessing a forged document," Mr. Zeltser said, stressing that the will had been authentic.

While Patarkatsishvili's widow Inna Gudavadze had effectively lodged a complaint with the Prosecutor General of Belarus, the allegations of  Berezovsky's malicious entrapment can originally be traced only to Zeltser's PR machines. So it's best to reserve judgement. As for Gudavadze's complaint it was confirmed as Zeltser admits: "The investigators found a copy of this will on my computer, printed it out and charged me with possessing a forged document."  So there we have it. A print out of an image file. How the Belarus court went about determining it was a forgery does raise many questions.

The coda: "Mr. Zeltser said, stressing that the will had been authentic" defies legal language. I trust there is something lost in the transcript (there is no Russian original of this article) since wills are either authentic or forged. They may be superseded or no longer valid but that is another matter. Mr.Zeltser is to produce his "had been authentic will" in the New York Southern District Court as soon as possible. But the Americans want the original. No messing around. No image files.

In August 2008, Mr. Zeltser was sentenced to three years in prison on charges of "attempted industrial espionage" and the use of fake documents.

The Russian versions calls it "commercial espionage." By Western standards a sentence of three years is very light.

The Minsk City Court held the trial behind closed doors and no details of the case were disclosed to the public.

Closed door trials are held in many Western nations, most notably the United States. As deplorable as it may be it does not distinguish Belarus from other nations. It is further to Mr. Zeltser's advantage. He may therefore depict it in whatever way it may suit him.

As David's article makes abundantly clear, there are many "closed doors" in this story, most notably in Washington.

Mr. Zeltser told BelaPAN that the attempted espionage charge had been brought against him just before the trial. The investigators feared that their forgery case would collapse as a court in Tbilisi then recognized the will as authentic, he said.

Emanuel Zeltser may jockey the story any old way, as I have just noted, but the idea that the prosecutors would have even the remotest interest in what goes on in another sovereign state is plain ridiculous. It won't go over in Arkansas. The Georgia supreme court recognized Patarkatsishvili's signature on a Durable Power of Attorney  that no other court in the Western world would have accepted regardless its authenticity. No will was presented in the Georgia proceedings. However, the ruling allowed Kay to take over Imedi, silence the opposition and pocket untold billions, much to Saakashvili's content.

Mr. Zeltser said that he had no intention to take any legal action against Mr. Berezovsky, expressing confidence that "Russia will have him extradited soon."

This poses one of the more fascinating gambits in this international game. Russia does want Berezovsky extradited according to law, and Berezovsky continues to collect guilty sentences in absentia. But from a political point of view Berezovsky is a grave problem for the English- not the Russians. Deep down the Russians are not pressing the matter since a Berezovsky at large damages England more than Russia. The Americans definitely want nothing to do with him.

When asked about his imprisonment conditions, the 55-year-old Zeltser, who suffers ill health, said that the denial of vital medical drugs had been a "real torture." "This seriously affected my condition," he said.

"They refused to give the medications to me during those 16 months, even after representatives of the US Department of State brought them to your country," the lawyer said. "Initially, they wanted to prosecute me on charges of drug smuggling, which is why they just couldn't give me those `illegal drugs." And they also said that the medications were not licensed in Belarus."

The drugs in question may have been "vital" from a psychological point of view. He certainly did well without them. According to a statement by his physician the drugs were pain killers and anti-depressants. Such substances are used in treating diabetic neuropathy.  Belarus considered some of them illegal drugs, not licensed in Belarus. The quantity possessed by Zeltser qualified as a charge of drug smuggling, which was later dropped. A quick check with UN Conventions and national laws narrows the case down. In the United States the abuse of pain killers is well known both as "hillbilly heroin" and celebrity highs. Rush Limbaugh was nabbed for abuse. Keith Ledger overdosed on them, and it is suspected they contributed to the death of Michael Jackson.

If detox at Betty Ford's can be considered torture, well then Zeltser was tortured. He looks a lot better for it.