GENEVA, June 10. (RIA Novosti's Yekaterina Andrianova) - Yesterday the Swiss federal criminal court found the arrest of Russian atomic energy ex-minister illegal and ruled to release him. Yevgeny Adamov's Swiss lawyer Stefan Wehrenberg told RIA Novosti on Thursday that the court in Bellinzona had found that the arrest violated international law and ruled to pay Mr. Adamov a compensation for the injury. The court made choice in favor of international law, which guarantees immunity of foreign witnesses, not Switzerland's obligations to extradite persons that are being wanted. Mr. Adamov came to investigators of his own accord to testify in the case of his daughter, Irina Adamova, who is accused of money laundering in Switzerland.
On Thursday the federal criminal court upheld the complaint of Mr. Adamov's lawyers of May 17 about the actions of the Swiss federal justice department, which had sanctioned the ex-minister's arrest in Bern.
Nevertheless Mr. Adamov will remain in custody, as the justice department has already asked the court to postpone his release till it lodges an appeal to a higher instance, the federal court in Lausanne.
In court, the lawyers contested the legitimacy of Mr. Adamov's first arrest on May 2 on the request from the United States, but on Thursday he was arrested again, this time on Russia's request.
Upon this request, the justice department issued a warrant for his arrest on June 7. Mr. Adamov's lawyers do not rule out appealing this arrest in the federal criminal court. If both arrests are found illegal, he will be released.
The Moscow city court in its turn on Thursday found the warrant for the ex-minister's arrest, issued by the Moscow Basmanny court, legal, overruling the complaint of his Russian lawyer Timofei Gridnev.
Mr. Adamov, who was Russian atomic energy minister in 1998-2001, was arrested in Bern on May 2 upon request of the U.S. Department of Justice. The United States has not sent a formal request for his extradition yet, but may do it before June 30.
Russia's extradition request was received on May 17. It was based on an arrest warrant issued on May 14 by the Basmanny court.
The Russian Prosecutor General's Office charged Mr. Adamov with fraud and excess of powers.
The American authorities accuse the ex-minister and his business partner, U.S. citizen Mark Kaushansky, of embezzling $9 million, the American government hadallocated for Russian nuclear safety projects.
If extradited, Mr. Adamov faces up to 60 years of imprisonment and a $1.75 million fine.
