Sergey Mironov, 30, a Russian citizen who had been arrested last Friday in Armenia’s Zvartnots Airport on charges of an illegal transfer of military technologies and money laundering, on Wednesday fled for Russia, TASS reported. On Tuesday, an Armenian court refused to remand Mironov, after the US had placed him the international wanted list. Mironov, 30, who had arrived in the capital Yerevan with his wife Yulia on vacation, was detained at the request of US authorities.
According to a report in RIA Novosti, Mironov is employed by the Moscow office of Synesis, a company developing intelligent video surveillance and business intelligence based on computer vision analysis.
Mironov’s attorney, Karen Nersisyan, told TASS, “My client had a return ticket to Moscow for August 31. Based on the court ruling, the motion for his arrest was turned down and we found in the court’s decision no grounds for keeping my client from leaving Armenia.”
Nersesyan told RT his client was wanted “”for alleged money laundering crimes worth $50,000.”
Nersisyan told Rossiya 24 TV earlier that since the US search for Sergei Mironov was riddled with legal irregularities, his client should be extradited to Russia, rather than to the US. “The Americans and Interpol violated my client’s elementary rights against illegal search and seizure,” he said, suggesting that “because of these violations, Armenia’s law enforcement and justice system must hand the Russian citizen over to Russia, and urge the Americans to follow procedure and contact Russia’s judiciary and, naturally, Interpol.”
The US has been chasing after Mironov since May for the illegal transfer of US military technology to an unnamed foreign country.