US lawyer in Belarus prison hospital

The lawyer for an American citizen imprisoned in Belarus said Monday his client has been hospitalized.

Emanuel Zeltser, a diabetic, is an attorney who was jailed in the capital, Minsk, after his March arrest on a commercial espionage charge his lawyers call politically motivated. He was sentenced to three years in prison in August and lost an appeal.

Zeltser was placed in a prison hospital after arriving at a penal colony in eastern Belarus to serve his sentence and he is being denied medicine, defense attorney Dmitry Goryachko said.

The U.S. has called for his release on humanitarian grounds, saying freeing him would help the authoritarian government improve ties with Washington.

A U.S. Embassy official has received permission to visit Zeltser and the prison doctor on Wednesday to discuss the American's condition, U.S. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said in Washington. Zeltser was last visited by a consular officer on Oct. 20, but it will be the first time an embassy official has been allowed to talk with the Belarusian doctor attending to Zeltser, McCormack said.