Polonsky defense lawyers plan to get their client's status changed to "witness"
MOSCOW. May 17 (Interfax) - Defense attorney Diana Tatosova does not rule out that the defense lawyers will manage to change Russian businessman Sergei Polonsky's procedural status from a suspect to a witness.
"Now he can provide complete and comprehensive explanations related to the charges brought against him on his own. We will probably manage to change his procedural status to that of a witness," she told reporters on Sunday.
Polonsky was deported from Cambodia to Russia on May 17 and he was brought to Moscow at 7:04 p.m. from Ho Chi Minh aboard a Vietnam Airlines plane on Sunday.
Tatosova confirmed that Polonsky had stayed in Cambodia without a visa.
"Sergei Polonsky had stayed in Cambodia without a visa, which was used by his enemy [former partner in Cambodian projects] Nikolai Doroshenko who, in our opinion, was involved in this situation," she said.
Tatosova also said that no extradition agreement had been signed to this day between Russia and Cambodia.
"Our two countries have not signed an extradition agreement to this day. Therefore, the law on deportation was applied to Sergei Polonsky," she said.
Doroshenko was arrested by Cambodian authorities in late March on counts of large-scale misappropriation of property, fraud and other counts. He can be jailed for many years, earlier reports said.
Polonsky's defense lawyers agued then that Doroshenko had misappropriated almost all of Polonsky's assets and was refusing to return them to the owner.
