| The former head of Minatom was briefed on the claims of his homeland Representatives of the Russian Embassy in Switzerland on Friday appealed to the Ministry of Justice of this country with a request to release on bail the former head of Minatom Evgeny Adamov, who has been in the Bern pre-trial detention center since May 2. Local authorities, in turn, on the same day familiarized Mr. Adamov with the request for his extradition, sent last week to Switzerland by the Prosecutor General's Office of the Russian Federation. This procedure was formal: Mr. Adamov was read a document and asked whether he himself agreed to travel to the Russian Federation. What Mr. Adamov answered remains a mystery; his lawyers have not said anything about this. However, Mr. Adamov's answer does not matter much until the Swiss authorities themselves decide which request for his extradition - from the United States or from Russia - deserves priority consideration. As already reported, the American prosecutor's office is demanding the extradition of Mr. Adamov on charges of embezzling $9 million, allocated back in the early 90s by a number of US corporations under contracts with the Research and Design Institute of Energy Engineering, which he then headed. The Prosecutor General's Office of the Russian Federation later announced that it also suspects him of fraud and abuse of power.
The Russian side's actions appear to be a clear attempt to save Mr. Adamov from American intelligence agencies. Although representatives of the Russian Federation directly admitted that state secrets had nothing to do with it. Deputy head of the Federal Atomic Energy Agency of the Russian Federation Ivan Kamenskikh said on Saturday that “the system for storing secrets of the nuclear industry in Russia is so well established that there is no fear of disclosing secrets.” Thus, Mr. Kamenskikh made it clear that Mr. Adamov does not possess any special state secrets. The Russian military, by the way, talked about this immediately after the arrest of the ex-minister. They noted that Mr. Adamov was mainly involved in peaceful atoms. And information on military topics (there is a main department within the Ministry of Atomic Energy that deals with the production of nuclear charges), to which he had access, is already open. Russia and the United States exchange this data under the START treaties. Based on this, observers believe, the Russian side fears the extradition of Mr. Adamov to the United States for another reason. In order, in principle, to avoid questioning Adamov there, since the answers to even the most harmless questions about his previous work can be interpreted by the American authorities as evidence of the insufficient security of the Russian nuclear industry. And it is precisely under this pretext that the US leadership is persistently seeking Russia to expand its presence at its nuclear facilities. Alexey GRISHIN |
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