A Milan appeals court said Saturday
that Justice Minister Carlo Nordio had not sent it a US request
for Russian businessman Artem Uss to be returned to jail from
house arrest before he escaped back to Russia on March 22.
The court was responding to Nordio's sending inspectors in to
see why Uss, the 40-year-old son of a Siberian governor wanted
in the States for arms smuggling, was not sent back to jail
before he broke his electronic ankle tag and fled back to Moscow
allegedly with the hp of Russian security operatives.
Nordio did not send to the Milan Court of Appeal the note from
the US Department of Justice requesting that Uss, who had been
granted house arrest, be returned to prison, according to a
report sent by the Court to the Ministry Saturday.
To the judges, they said, Nordio merely turned over on 9
December the reply he had given to that note three days earlier
in which he explained that the competence to decide on
imprisonment lies with the judicial authority and that the
measure of house arrest with an electronic bracelet is
equivalent to custody in prison.
The US letter called for Uss's imprisonment due to his being a
high flight risk.
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