Pubdate: Tue, 26 Jun 2001
Source: Chronicle of Higher Education, The (US)
Copyright: 2001 by The Chronicle of Higher Education
Contact:  http://chronicle.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/84
Author: Bryon Macwilliams

BELARUS ARRESTS HEAD OF AMERICAN EXCHANGE PROGRAM ON DRUG CHARGES

The American director of the Belarus office of an 
educational-exchange program was detained last week on drug charges.

Charles Perriello was observed smoking marijuana late Thursday by 
officers of the domestic security services who, acting upon a tip, 
had entered his apartment in Minsk, security officials said.

A subsequent search yielded an undetermined amount of the drug, said 
Col. Fyodor Kotov, a spokesman for the services, which have retained 
their Soviet-era name and initials, K.G.B.

Mr. Perriello, who was being detained Monday in a jail in Minsk, the 
capital, has worked in the country since 1999. He heads the exchange 
office of the American Council for Collaboration in Education and 
Language Study, which is supported in part with funds from the U.S. 
government. The council was established by the American Council of 
Teachers of Russian.

Exchange officials could not confirm the circumstances of the arrest. 
"We are still working to clarify the details. We don't have all those 
yet," said David Patton, regional director of both councils' program 
for the Newly Independent States, from his office here.

A lawyer retained by the organization was scheduled to consult Monday 
with Mr. Perriello in jail, Mr. Patton said. The U.S. Embassy to 
Belarus has declined to comment.

The episode has similarities to one involving John Tobin, an American 
Fulbright scholar who recently was sentenced to three years in prison 
following his conviction for marijuana use and possession in the city 
of Voronezh, in southwest Russia. Upon appeal, the sentence later was 
reduced to one year. Mr. Tobin has denied the charges.

Prior to his arrest, Mr. Tobin had been accused by the Russian 
security services of serving as a spy in training. The doctoral 
candidate asserted that he had been framed after refusing to spy for 
Russia, which did not file espionage charges.

The authoritarian president of Belarus, Aleksandr Lukashenko, 
characterizes Western-financed organizations in his country as mere 
fronts, bent on undermining his administration.

Mr. Perriello was born in New York and studied Russian at a special 
school at the Far Eastern State University, in Vladivostok, according 
to a 1998 interview he gave to the The Vladivostok News.

If convicted of all charges, he could face three to seven years in prison.
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