The Zamoskvoretsky District Court delayed the retrial of Yevgeny Adamov, 67, who is being prosecuted along with two co-defendants, Vyacheslav Pismennyi, former director of the Troitsky research center, and Revmir Freishut, former director of TechSnabExport, due to the illness of one of the defendants.
An international arrest warrant has been issued for a fourth defendant, Alexander Chernov, president of the Swiss company Nuclear Services and Supply Ltd, which was created by TechSnabExport in 1991 to market Russian products abroad.
Adamov has been accused of leading an organized criminal group that inflicted damage worth over 3 billion rubles (about $110 million) to the Russian budget, enterprises and organizations.
"Preliminary hearings cannot by law begin in the absence of a defendant," said Genri Reznik, who represents Adamov's interests.
The trial was already adjourned October 26 because Adamov's lawyers did not appear in court, and one of the defendants was in the hospital.
Adamov was originally arrested in Switzerland in May 2005 at the request of the United States, where authorities accuse him of misappropriating $9 million given to Russia for nuclear safety projects. If convicted in the U.S., Adamov would have faced 60 years in prison.
He was extradited to Russia in early 2006 to face charges, but was released by the Russian Supreme Court July 21, after a total of 15 months in prison, to await trial.
Adamov, who served from 1998 to 2001 as Russia's nuclear power minister, said in October he will insist on a trial in a U.S. court, although the U.S. authorities have accused him of a crime they said was committed in Russia.
"It is surprising that Russia's jurisdiction has been transferred to another state," Adamov said. "I think proceedings in the U.S. will be adjourned until the process is completed here [in Russia]."
He also said he will not ask the court to close his case because the statute of limitation has expired. "I will not use the expiration of the statute of limitations [to ask for a dismissal], because it would imply an indirect admission of guilt," Adamov said then.
On October 16, the Moscow City Court canceled the Zamoskvoretsky District Court's decision to send Adamov's case back to the Prosecutor General's Office to correct shortcomings in the investigation and clarify the charges.
The city court thereby upheld an appeal by prosecutors against the district court decision. Prosecutors demanded that the case should instead be sent for retrial in the district court.
