Jury panel to discuss verdict in case of RF pilot Yaroshenko

NEW YORK, April 26 (Itar-Tass) - The jury panel will soon begin to
discuss the verdict in the case of drug trafficking, one of the defendants
in which is Russian pilot Konstantin Yaroshenko, presiding Federal Judge
Jed Rakoff said on Monday evening after another hearing at the federal
court in the Southern District of Manhattan.
Representatives of the prosecution side made closing remarks at the
court hearing. Then the lawyers of the defendants were given the floor.
According to Rakoff, the court meeting on Tuesday will begin with a
statement by a representative of the prosecution in which he will answer
several questions that the defendants' lawyers put during the final
argument on Monday. Then the judge will give instructions to the jury and
they will withdraw to deliberate on the verdict.
Africans Chigbo Peter Umeh, Nathaniel French and Kudufia Mawuko are
other defendants in the case with Russian citizen Yaroshenko.
All of them were arrested in the capital of Liberia - Monrovia - in
May and June, 2010, and then transported to the United States. According
to prosecutors, they have entered into a criminal conspiracy to deliver
about five tonnes of drugs worth millions of dollars from South America to
Liberia, which served as a transit point, and then - to other countries,
including the United States.
Last Monday, cross-examination of witnesses - staff officers and
confidential informants of the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA)
continued at the trial. The prosecutors' arguments are based on their
testimony, as well as on videos and printouts of their conversations.
Yaroshenko has pleaded not guilty because, as his lawyer emphasised,
"he has not done anything illegal."
Following his arrest last year, the Russian Foreign Ministry accused
the United States of kidnapping a Russian pilot in Liberia. The pilot,
Konstantin Yaroshenko, who was arrested in May 2010, was charged with
smuggling cocaine, the United States Drug Enforcement Administration said.
"We're talking about a kidnapping of a Russian national from a third
country," the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement, calling the
"forcible and secret relocation of our national" an example of "open
lawlessness." The DEA said Yaroshenko was seized by Liberian authorities,
who turned him over to the United States two days later. "While he was in
DEA custody, the DEA followed the rules of law and the Geneva Convention
regulations regarding treatment of a defendant," the agency's statement
said.