Moldova court frees former defence minister

CHISINAU, July 9 (Reuters) Moldova's Appeals Court today freed a former defence minister jailed on fraud charges in connection with the illegal sale of warplanes to the United States.

Valery Passat, jailed in March 2005, had dismissed his conviction as political, linked to his public criticism of Moldovan President Vladimir Voronin.

''Passat was amnestied and freed today in court. The legal proceedings are now complete,'' Passat's lawyer, Gheorghe Amihalachioaie, told Reuters.

Passat, who most recently had worked as an adviser to Anatoly Chubais, head of Russia's RAO-UES electricity monopoly, was initially sentenced to 10 years for the sale of 21 Soviet-era MiG-29 aircraft to Washington for 40 million dollars.

Prosecutors said the sale's low price had caused losses of 55 million dollar to the former Soviet state, though former President Petru Lucinschi testified that Washington had put pressure on Moldova to sell it the planes to stop them ending up in Iran.

That conviction was overturned in May, but Passat was sentenced on another charge of selling ''Uragan'' (Hurricane) missile systems to an African state in 1998. Moldova's Supreme Court in May also quashed that conviction and turned it over to the appeals court.

''The appeals court has cleared Passat on the episode with MiGs and amnestied him in connection with the Uragan episode,'' Amihalachioaie said.

Reuters SV GC1539