BELARUS ARRESTS HEAD OF AMERICAN EXCHANGE PROGRAM ON DRUG CHARGES

The American director of the Belarus office of an
educational-exchange program was detained last week on drug charges.

Charles Perriello was observed smoking marijuana late Thursday by
officers of the domestic security services who, acting upon a tip,
had entered his apartment in Minsk, security officials said.

A subsequent search yielded an undetermined amount of the drug, said
Col. Fyodor Kotov, a spokesman for the services, which have retained
their Soviet-era name and initials, K.G.B.

Mr. Perriello, who was being detained Monday in a jail in Minsk, the
capital, has worked in the country since 1999. He heads the exchange
office of the American Council for Collaboration in Education and
Language Study, which is supported in part with funds from the U.S.
government. The council was established by the American Council of
Teachers of Russian.

Exchange officials could not confirm the circumstances of the arrest.
"We are still working to clarify the details. We don't have all those
yet," said David Patton, regional director of both councils' program
for the Newly Independent States, from his office here.

A lawyer retained by the organization was scheduled to consult Monday
with Mr. Perriello in jail, Mr. Patton said. The U.S. Embassy to
Belarus has declined to comment.

The episode has similarities to one involving John Tobin, an American
Fulbright scholar who recently was sentenced to three years in prison
following his conviction for marijuana use and possession in the city
of Voronezh, in southwest Russia. Upon appeal, the sentence later was
reduced to one year. Mr. Tobin has denied the charges.

Prior to his arrest, Mr. Tobin had been accused by the Russian
security services of serving as a spy in training. The doctoral
candidate asserted that he had been framed after refusing to spy for
Russia, which did not file espionage charges.

The authoritarian president of Belarus, Aleksandr Lukashenko,
characterizes Western-financed organizations in his country as mere
fronts, bent on undermining his administration.

Mr. Perriello was born in New York and studied Russian at a special
school at the Far Eastern State University, in Vladivostok, according
to a 1998 interview he gave to the The Vladivostok News.

If convicted of all charges, he could face three to seven years in prison.