Belarus strongman frees jailed US citizen

Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko Tuesday ordered the release of a US citizen whose imprisonment last year strained ties with Washington, as he called for the resumption of full diplomatic relations.

Lukashenko signed a decree pardoning Emanuel Zeltser, a lawyer who had been jailed in Belarus since March 2008 in murky circumstances, after meeting a US Congressional delegation, a presidential spokesman said.

"The president has signed a decree pardoning Zeltser," a spokesman for Lukashenko, Pavel Lyogky, told AFP.

Zeltser, a Russian-born lawyer and expert on money laundering who once testified before the US Congress on Russian organised crime, was arrested on landing at Minsk airport in March 2008.

He was later sentenced to three years in prison on charges of industrial espionage and using forged documents.

The United States raised concerns about Zeltser's health and asked for his release on humanitarian grounds, an appeal that Belarus initially rejected.

Supporters of Zeltser have alleged that his arrest was related to his work on the disputed inheritance of Georgian billionaire Badri Patarkatsishvili, who died in London in February 2008.

At the time of his arrest, Zeltser was representing Joseph Kay, a relative of Patarkatsishvili who claims to be the billionaire's heir.

Earlier this month Zeltser went on a hunger strike to protest his situation, a move that lawyers feared could worsen his already poor health.

Lukashenko, whose regime was once dubbed "Europe's last dictatorship" by Washington, made the surprise decision to pardon Zeltser after a rare visit to Belarus by a US Congressional delegation.

One member of the delegation, Senator Benjamin Cardin, told reporters after the meeting that Lukashenko had promised to free Zeltser as early as Tuesday evening.

In the meeting with US lawmakers -- the highest-ranking delegation from the US Congress to visit Belarus in more than a decade -- Lukashenko voiced hope for a full restoration of ties, provided Washington lifted sanctions.

"We are ready to return to talks about a full restoration of a mutual diplomatic presence on the condition of the legal cancellation of sanctions against our country," Lukashenko said.

"Belarus is very interested in a constructive exchange of views with the United States on all questions which have been frozen for the last 10 years."

The US delegation raised concerns about freedom of speech and democracy in the closed-doors part of their meeting with Lukashenko, Cardin said.

"We explained to the president our view that Belarus does not conform to international standards in these areas," said Cardin, a member of US President Barack Obama's Democratic Party.

Besides Cardin, the group of US lawmakers included Representative Alcee Hastings and Senator Richard Durbin, the Senate's number two Democrat.

It was the highest-ranking delegation from the US Congress to visit the former Soviet republic in more than a decade.

The US State Department has been fiercely critical of Belarus' human rights record, calling it "very poor" in a report in February.

However Lukashenko in recent months has sought to develop ties with the West and has launched numerous verbal attacks against Russia, after years of being a staunch ally of Moscow.

Relations between Belarus and the United States hit a low in 2008 when the US ambassador left the country and several other US diplomats were forced out amid a row over US economic sanctions on state oil and chemicals firm Belneftekhim.