From Russia With Diamonds

In 1995, Golden ADA Inc., a San Francisco diamond-importing firm, collapsed, unveiling an international trail of theft and betrayal that embarrassed San Francisco luminaries involved with the company. Now, newly unsealed court files show that high-level m

A A A Comments By Peter Byrne Wednesday, Jul 1 1998

...continued from page 7

Andre Kozlenok, who had been avoiding a Russian arrest warrant for over two years, was traveling under a false name to Greece in midwinter of 1998 when he was arrested at the Athens airport.

In March, the Moscow Times quoted from a letter Kozlenok wrote from his cell in Athens' Koridallos prison: "I am more than sure that ... I shall not have more than two or three days to live if I am extradited to Russia. There is a strong effort to silence all innocent individuals who, not having other ways to protect themselves, at one point are forced to make public all the information they possess."

In mid-June, Kozlenok is extradited to Moscow. His Belgian attorney, Valentine Wouters, says Kozlenok's mother has yet to be able to visit her son in prison. Wouters says she has not been informed of the charges against her client.

And Sergei Dovbysh, the Golden employee and former official of the Russian Interior Ministry who was arrested in possession of 125 pounds of contraband gold, and who managed the apparently unprecedented feat of strangling himself to death with piano wire in a holding cell guarded by two jailers, remains undeniably dead.