U.S. JUSTICE DEPARTMENT AGREES TO PAY $100,000
TO VICTIM OF U.S.-RUSSIAN PERSECUTION

Information Times, August 22, 1997

WASHINGTON, DC, USA - August 22, 1997 (FPS) -- The U.S. Justice Department (DOJ) on Thursday agreed to pay $100,000 compensation in Alexandre P. Konanykhine Habeas Corpus case. Other compensations will be discussed starting next week.

Konanykhine points out: "The KGB manipulation is getting expensive to the U.S. taxpayers."

In the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, he had filed a Petition in March 1997 for issuance of Writ of Habeas Corpus of appropriate relief of unlawful detention and prosecution, due to: unlawful arrest, malicious prosecution, malicious abuse of legal process by Respondent, abuse of discretion by Respondent, willful misrepresentation of material facts by Respondent and his agents (perjury and fraud), and an array of due process and Constitutional violations.

Petitioner, Alexandre Konanykhine, acting pro se, petitioned the Court to issue a Writ of Habeas Corpus to require his release from unlawful detention by the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS). Petitioner alleged that he was unlawfully imprisoned, detained, and restrained of his liberty by the Respondent, William J. Carroll, District Director of the INS Washington District Office.

A statement about the case and the DOJ decision by John N. Nassikas III, who is associated with the law firm of Arent Fox, Kintner Plotkin & Kahn, the attorneys for Alexandre Konanykhine, states:

"This decision by the Department of Justice is long overdue. This settlement gives back to Mr. Konanykhine his freedom and his dignity."

"Mr. Konanykhine and I believe that the settlement is vindication of what he has been consistently saying for over one year now: he is a victim of Russian political persecution, and of U.S. government complicity in a deceptive effort to return Mr. Konanykhine to his Russian persecutors. We believe that the record now shows that the FBI and the INS trumped up charges of immigration fraud to cozy up to Russian military prosecutors and deceived a federal court about the real motivations for a de facto extradition to Moscow."

"Mr. Konanykhine now has his freedom. Mr. Konanykhine and is wife Elena Gratcheva now have the right to work in this country. Next the Department of Justice should grant political asylum to Alexandre and Elena."

"As Mr. Konanykhine's lawyer, I am happy for this result, for which we at Arent Fox have worked very hard. As a former member of the Department of Justice, I am troubled that our government conducted itself so poorly in the past that laws were manipulated and deceptions were carried out and Alexandre Konanykhine, as a consequence, had to spend over one year in jail at the direction of the INS. As a citizen and as a taxpayer, I am sad to see that our government, through this settlement, has put itself in a position where it has had to pay a severe price for its own serious missteps."

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