Sunday, June 28, 2009

Dear Sonia,

With your forbearance I will begin where I last left off, however,
before doing so I want to correct a typographical faux pas in my last
correspondence and apologize for having used the word “steak” as
opposed to “the State stuck the stake into the company’s heart”.

I had to laugh; most probably this is a Freudian slip on my part, it

more than 6 years since I had a “steak”, so probably “steaks” as
opposed to “stakes” on my mind having writing to you before our
daily ration of beans, no joke and I do whatever I can to avoid it!

Presently I am doing my best at attempting not to look the total fool,

it appears that I am not wholly successful and will try to avoid such
foolishness Freudian slips in future correspondence, though I dare
not make any promises of succeeding.

Again, I thank you for all the things that your colleagues and you
have discussed with Tracy about Nicholas; they need help in many
ways. The greatest gift you have given is hope and the knowledge
there are people out there with big hearts and the will to do
something, for even if it were possible to collect all the expressions
of empathy and good wishes available the world it means nothing
without the will to do what must be done. Expressions of good
wishes do little to heal the sick or feed the hungry or right the
wrongs suffered by others, it takes commitment, not promises and
the readiness to fight against often-impossible odds. What CWD
and other agencies akin to it prove is that when like minded,
determined people like you are collected together they are able,
through no more than the force of each individuals will, turn
empathy and good wishes into the saving of lives, the relieving
hunger and human suffering, the righting of injustice and the
promise of real hope.

My voice is a lonely one, but it can express, I think, what everyone

in similar circumstance might say of they were able to understand
the importance of men and women like you and what you try to do,
and not only for what you succeed in doing. Thank you on behalf of
men and women like me who need hope.
In my last letter I ended with August 1995 when having left my
Bulgaria operations in care of about 40 employees. It was only
possible to carry on in Bulgarian at a very reduced level, and this
solely due to some financing coming from the company’s Greek,
Republic of Georgia and Canada offices. These cash reserves were
expected to hold out until a restructuring and refinancing of all the
companies could be completed. That planned for the USA after
having taken a controlling interest in a Utah Corporation (LifeChoice
USA) was pink sheeted (OTC) on the NASDQ, I developed a plan
with its principles to consolidate all our Eastern European tangible
and intangible (intellectual) assets into the US Company and do a
small IPO of 7-10 million. This would allow us to reorganize in the
USA and to continue with the immunological studies outside of
Bulgaria, our trading (food, alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages,
cigarettes) and 2 waste oil refineries sold off or shut down, the
company returning to its core activity of identifying, developing and
licensing pharmaceutical products, inventories, land and refinery
equipment having been seized by the State of Bulgaria. And so they
remain today, seized not confiscated.

This refocusing and refinancing was necessary as the Company

having recently (July 1995) completed before the National Institutes
of Health Bethesda, Maryland a presentation of its preliminary
clinical results from the Austin, Texas trials of the immunostimulant.
The presentation, by invitation only, resulted in acceptance of the
our therapeutic approach as well as the results, however, a change
of clinical study methodology was recommended and this required
broadening the scope of the trials – more patients, double blind and
a more in-depth, expensive, biochemical investigation into isolating
the active agent or metabolite in the cocktail of antigens we relied
on to obtain the desired immune response.

Hopes were high, so were the expenses.

The initial principles of the US Company organized the HIV/AIDS

patients in Texas and provided the initial financing for that study,
they ran into cash problems and became indebted largely to the
Bulgarian operation for the shipments of medicine we billed out to
them. Afterward, it was agree to swap debt for shares, the Bulgarian
company to take control in a reverse takeover, Bulgarian investors
ultimately obtaining shares of the US Company and then
proceeding onto the new financing. We continued to send the
medicine from Bulgaria right up to the moment the offices are closed
and the inventory of medicines seized. My time after leaving
Bulgaria was spent largely in trying to collect all the unbroken eggs
into one basket.

This US Company and the patients presently provide a legal –

jurisdictional - as well as moral link to the USA, and one sufficient
for anyone truly interested in championing what has been a terrible
injustice to everyone affected, first and foremost the patients, my
family and then those persons having the faith, at that time, to invest
in the projects.
On the personal level there is what my family and I have suffered,
on a higher moral and social level there is what happened to the
patients in Austin who relied both physically and psychologically on
the medicine as one small weapon in their arsenal against HIV and
the effects of AIDS. Greater still, if I am proven right there is the
larger social damage of wantonly and purposely without good cause
having halted shipments of the medicine and more senselessly
destroying its chances for credibility The Bulgarian governments
irresponsible actions destroying everyone left in the wake of an
aggressive and ill reasoned act under the protective mantel of State
immunity and alleged pursuit of justice.

To destroy the company and me, they – the Bulgarian authorities -

had to destroy the credibility of the Company’s research as well as
the product, notwithstanding that its basic technology being
developed over the preceding 10 years by Bulgaria scientists at the
National Centre for Infectious and Parasitic Diseases. They, with me
filed the new use patent, a copy of which I sent you, it is the
representatives – scientists - of this State Institution who before the
NIS at Bethesda presented the technology that the Bulgarian
government so aggressively and publicly acted to discredit.

There is a Bulgarian proverb that I do not know how to translate,

however, its meaning is as follows: Better all of us should fail, rather
than only one of us succeed. For the Bulgarian government to
discredit the basic research and results of its own scientific
institutions solely that no one else succeeded with the science
developed by it (Bulgaria) is to me an excellent objective
manifestation of this proverb.

I have often wonder if callousness, indifference and incompetence

are also responsible or when keeping in mind the materialistic
priorities of those men who had me arrested if it was not a mix of
ignorance, arrogance and resentment at my having obtained a
medical technology with so much potential to make someone other
than themselves wealthy. The question is a complex one; the
answers will not come easily and will require a process of discovery
only available before a court of law outside of Bulgaria. To that end I
initiated lawsuits in Texas and Indiana.

At this juncture discussing the lawsuits is a bit out of chronological

order; having filed the civil actions in the USA and Canada in 2000
they are significantly after my arrest, however, the lawsuits concern
the elements of the events I have thus far described. Factologically
the nature of the complaints filed and the federal law applicable in
the USA to the events might be reasonably inserted here, the
particulars of the above legal “connection” to the USA best
expressed by the two civil actions as commenced on behalf of the
companies, the patients, my family, and investors against agencies
of the Republic of Bulgaria.
I have attached for your consideration the originating process and
complaints for both civil actions against Bulgaria. I wrote these
myself and make apology for their crude structure as well as
possibly discursive nature. However, I was in arrest and had very
limited access to research materials or the necessary facilities. I
found myself piecing together bits and pieces of legislation, and
case law in an effort to structure the complaints. Not being familiar
with court rules and procedures was not of help, so in this there has
been and remains a hit and miss process. After having handwritten
the various filings I then had to give them to be transcribed,
afterward sending them on to friends and family to file with the
respective courts.

Once filed with the court we provided copies and summons to be

very publicly served to the various defendants in Bulgaria according
to procedures set out in the Hague Convention on the Service of
Documents in commercial matters and the exceptions noted by the
Government of Bulgaria.

The Texas lawsuit is filed, and Bulgaria in default, however, the

logistics are more complicated having no one in Texas to pursue the
filing of the needed documents. I’ve provided a hyperlink here to the
attachment, assuming of course it is on the appropriate drive for
your computer, the files also attacted to this E-mail.

A:\John Doe and others claim.doc – Texas Complaint

At present, the Indiana suit finds the Government of Bulgaria in

default of appearance, and I am only waiting to petition the court to
enter default judgement. The difficulty and delays are with my dear
dad who is 80 years old and cannot undertake the needed steps
with the Court to get an Order for judgement to be entered. This
requires me to do it from here and while I now know what I should
do I lack the material resources to do it. Attached is the Indiana
Complaint as filed and a scan of the Default entered, this is also
provided here as a hyperlink to the “A” drive, this easy changed by
typing over the drive letter to the appropriate drive and directory for
your computer.

- Indiana Complaint
- Indiana Default Entered

Pursuit of these lawsuits would of course provide a legal platform

requiring Bulgaria to answer hard questions that at present it
chooses to ignore. I am confidant, enough so to be willing to raise
these issues before courts of law, Bulgaria preferring instead to bury
them.

My approach has been to seek legal redress under US civil law and
rely on the evidence of commercial contracts and activities to
ultimately exonerate me.
Our commercial and residential connections to the USA having
given jurisdiction to US courts to determine the facts and law
applicable to any activity ultimately having affect on private and
corporate citizens of the United States. By approaching the
problems with Bulgarian in this way I have managed to make them
directly accountable for the effect of its actions in United States,
although the act itself occurred in Bulgaria.

International and US law does not allow for my family or I to seek

domestic judicial redress for what we insist to be a wrongful arrest,
needless beatings and drugging as well as tortuous abuses of
official power and processes, law apparently leaves such
determinations be made by international human rights tribunals and
not domestic courts of the United States and Canada. However, civil
action relying on the commercial connection and personal injury
suffered in the USA does provide jurisdiction.

On the basis of the above I think it would be reasonable to obtain

assistance from public figures as well as organisations, at first
curious if there is merit to what I say, and then involved if it proves I
have a good prima facie case.

Although I suspect there are legal loopholes allowing such human

rights claims to be raised in the United States, I am at present
ignorant of the applicable laws allowing for it.

Returning now to the events in late 1995. The Bulgarian offices

continued to operate in an effort to keep Bulgarian depositary
receipt shareholders calm, at least as much as was humanly
possible under the circumstances.

There was an aggressive effort by Bulgarian staff to explain what

was happening and so reason with investors and obtain their
cooperation in the restructuring of the companies. This cooperation
took the form of their proceeding with the “call” to exchange
depositary receipts shares for common shares of the Bulgarian
Company, then later US Company shares after the consolidation I
spoke of earlier.

During these months operations in Bulgaria had to be conducted in

cash, the Ministry of Finance having seized all the bank accounts
and assets left in Bulgaria, the cash seizure was minimal having
anticipated several weeks before what might come about. The
physical assets and inventories were another matter all together; we
were unable to uproot the plant equipment or infrastructure we had
built over 4 years. This all fell into government control.

It is significant that in August 1995 there was no suggestion of a

criminal investigation known to me of any kind against company
activities or me, the very public legal disputes between the
Government and myself had to do with the fact of an assessment of
a VAT on our depositary receipt share transactions. This dispute –
Kapoustin versus Government - was very vocal, and publicly visible.
I can honestly say not a day went by without a newspaper, radio or
TV commentary on the subject of this dispute and the allegations
that were tossed about. This started in the months immediately prior
to my departure and continued into the following months up to when
the Bulgaria State actually commenced its criminal investigation at
the end of October 1995. After this the tone of the press coverage
changed.

Earlier attacks against the company and me directed mostly at the

commercial viability of activities. However, the tenor of this media
hew and cry changed dramatically, becoming far more nastier as
well as outrageous. This naturally occurred after the Government
announced its criminal investigation and public officials began to
distribute advance information and conclusions that I was
connected to an international criminal organization operating behind
the façade of a Canadian and American “pseudo – religious” cult’s
activities. In my previous letter to you I briefly touched on the subject
of these defamations.

While I was aware of the investigation, it only to obvious from the

publicity it received and fact that on October 29th 1995 all company
offices in Bulgaria having been closed, documents and data seized
as well as the balance of any company assets if not already seized
then being seized.

Also I was interviewed on the following Nov. 4 1995 from Greece by

Bulgarian National TV, a Satellite Uplink to Bulgaria set-up with
Greek TV. The interview was taped, and then the investigator, one
Stephan Georgiev, was interviewed live. The investigator had made
public statements that I had “run away, escaped, on my Harley
Davidson with 16,000,000 USD cash in my saddle bags”, and the
National Police and Interpol could not find me. Needless to say the
interviewer started to run the videotaped uplink with me, asking
“how is it Bulgarian National TV can find and interview Kapoustin
and you can’t?”

This all sounds like a bad soap opera, but its true. There was
actually a story circulated that like something out of a bad modern
day Italian western I had jumped on my mechanical horse, a Harley
Davidson, and with millions of dollars stashed in its saddle bags I
rode off into the sunset with the loot, this required a active although
not creative imagination.

As of that Nov. 4th 1995 interview were there no charges against me.
However, 24 days later, the same investigator after having egg
splattered on his face on national TV did bring charges against me
on Nov. 28th 1995. I know for a fact he was really upset, he told me
so after I had experiences several late night beatings.

However, I was not informed of the charges and neither were any of
the Company attorneys or Board of Directors still in Bulgaria. It all
only became to clear when on February 7th 1996 I was arrested
while in transit on business trip from Tbilisi, Georgia while returning
to my offices in Greece.
My Odyssey and the pain of my family began at that moment.

To go into the particulars of everything that happened afterward, in

Germany and Bulgaria, the hunger strikes, the beatings, the
interrogations, and the discovery of Anti-Semitism as an underlying
motive for all the things done proves to long a dissertation of
hundreds of pages and painful details. It is truly for a court of law, an
autobiography or a eulogy on human suffering and survival. Even a
novel or film would only focus on the highlights and not the complex
issues and events leading to discovery of a covert nexus of cold war
as well as fascist racial ideologies still prevalent within a system
slow to change. I do not know if it will do any good to go into it now,
although the materials are prepared my discourse on the subject is
target towards courts of law, and not story telling in the classic
sense. To go into that much detail most certainly does not appear to
be of any short-term value.

However, I am not the one to judge. Being in prison is like

blindness, you can’t see what is or is not important anymore and
you are, after so many years, no longer sure what it is that will help.

The sense of hopelessness is overwhelming at times. I can’t tell you

how often the feeling passes over me that it is pointless to keep
trying, why bother? Who is out there to listen? When someone does
then you make the mistake of allowing hope to surface again,
usually only to turn hope again into despair because you don’t
succeed to properly advocate to others that you are worthy of help.

I am not alone in this feeling, all the prisoners experience it and

while I can say that most of the drug transporters, murders, thieves,
and illegal immigrants I have lived with these years are by their own
admission to me guilty, I can also say there are 1 or two who may
well be innocent. But, their poverty, lack of education and being so
far from home dooms them. I try to help, tutoring them in what little I
know of domestic and international law, helping write petitions and
appeals to the courts as well as other authorities. Sometime I
succeed, and one or two find their way out, other I am afraid do not
and will spend years before having any chance at fair and equal
justice.

Returning now briefly to the charges that surfaced against me, they
are as follows.

First, on Nov 28 1995 I was charged by the State for embezzlement

of funds belonging to the Bulgarian company, you might recall that
there are two facts making such an accusation absurd from the
outset for the reasons that follow.

(1) 100% of the voting shares of the Company in Bulgaria are

controlled not by Bulgarians but by my family, friends and I,
(2) Most of the money I was accused of misappropriating by
transferring to several foreign companies could be traced to
deposits made by me, and identified as to its source
(3) The Board of Directors approved all the bank transactions
forming the basis of the accusation and lastly
(4) There was no complaint from any officer, employee, debtor or
shareholder of the Company as to irregularities in the payments
I approved over a period of two years.

New charges were added after my arrest by Germany on Feb 7 at

the request of Bulgaria’s Interpol office. On Feb 12 1996 I was
charged with misappropriation by documental fraud, tax evasion
and fraudulent tax returns, as well as plain old fraud. The charges
involved the same money, only apparently stolen by me in over the
same period in four different ways. In Feb. 1996 the Bulgarian State
alleged my misappropriating 18,000,000 USD, finally correcting it to
125,000 USD by the end of the first trial in 2001.

On Sept. 2nd 1996, after having spent 49 days on a hunger strike

protesting my extradition I was literally dragged unconscious from a
prison hospital bed by German police, unceremoniously thrown into
the back set of a police car and driven to the Frankfurt airport
hospital where I was checkout. Still alive and moving, I was deemed
healthy enough to be handed over on a stretcher to waiting
Bulgarian police and one doctor.

I arrived at the airport to a welcome by a group of about 60 “SWAT”

police – masks, machine guns ambulance and all. Sirens blazing I
was taken to a police hospital where they began to pressure me to
accept intravenous feeding. After several days I was told,
“intravenous or no Canadian counsel”, after that it was “say you are
eating, or else no lawyer” so I said I’m eating, even though I wasn’t.

This cat and mouse game went on for about 16 days before I was
taken to arrest, now no doctors, no bed, no toilet, no shower and no
windows only a dim 60 watt yellow bulb, guards with truncheons, a
metal bench, no mattress, one blanket, a lot of cockroaches and the
red bucket. I continued the hunger strike, even if I wanted to eat
what was offered was more than enough motivation not to. Lock up
is 24 hrs, I was alone and remained that way for the next couple of
years. I did manage to demand a Bible, a pencil and my diary. The
days were a mixture of weakness, fighting with guards trying to
force me to eat the slop, loosing consciousness at least 3 – 4 times
a day and when I got to see my lawyers being told not to say a
word, I wasn’t going anywhere soon and it would be easier on me if
I didn’t complain about what I could not prove – there were no
doctors to examine me during that period of about 30 days. The
worst threat wasn’t physical; it was the possibility that they would
take my paper and pencil, along with my Bible and I would be left
alone with the thoughts I so desperately wanted to record. So I
complied. No complaining.
I was later moved to a slightly better arrest facility, going from worst
to just bad. The treatment the same, my protests the same,
including on and off hunger strikes, etc.. Only now I had managed
more paper, books and having figured out the system got much
better at improving my circumstances as much as they could be
approved.

It was September 1998 when the “investigation” finished and the

“final charge” was in, Bulgaria having three prejudicial investigative
phases, two judicial investigative phases and one final judicial
decision. It is unusual to our practice. It goes something like this.

1. In August of 1995 a “signal” was sent by the Office of the

Prosecutor (Attorney General) that there was a complaint by
due to a criminal complaint of the Ministry of Finance Tax Dept I
should be investigated. This begins the first phase.
2. In October 1995 that ended and the second phased started, this
proceeds until the investigative police detective completes his
report giving the result of his investigation and charging the
accused.
3. In July 1998 this second phase ended and the third phase
begins, the supervising prosecutors investigation.
4. In December 1998 the third phase ended when the prosecutor
writes the indictment and files it with the trial court.

It took Bulgaria 3 years and 4 months to do three significant things,

first drop all the charges, then settle on one charge, fraudulent
representation when marketing depositary receipts in Bulgaria i.e.
promising profits at the end of the 2nd year of company operations
and failing to meet those promises, and the depositary receipt
shares becoming worthless. My malice and forethought the fact I
knew no profits would come from the medicine, licenses, etc.,
because all the projects had no possibility to make a profit. It is
more complicated than that, but that is essentially it.

However, this changed again when the Attorney General of Bulgaria

decided the Fraud carried to light a sentence 3-10 years, as
opposed to embezzlement 10-30 years. Apparently his difficulty was
that I would be released immediately since they could not keep me
in arrest more than two years without an indictment. On ORDERS
the charge was changed to having stolen the exactly the same
subject of the fraud, but through a later embezzlement. To put it very
simply, it is the same as having stolen a loaf of bread, being
charged for that first and then being charged a second time for
having misappropriated it from its owner by eating the same loaf of
bread. Both the supervising police detective and prosecutor both
filed written protests that the charges against me, as ORDERED by
the Attorney General are, and I quote “Impossible” and “absurd”,
notwithstanding that I was tried on the charges by the district court
here. The court has no jury, only one judge and two professional
assessors.
The trial started in April 1999, it finished in March 2001, nearly three
years, the verdict guilty of embezzlement the sentence 23 years. I
appealed.

In August 2002 the Court of Appeal acquitted me on all counts of

embezzlement, the charges “impossible” and “absurd”, it then
convicted me on fraud, because and I am quoting “I knew the
commercial activities of the company would not result in the
promised profits, and the Company would not be able to “return” the
investment to the depositary receipt shareholders”, the Court
admitting the investment contracts signed by the “victims” were valid
and legal, as well admitting that ALL the “victims” had agreed to the
terms and to take the depositary shares. Here, there are three
judges and the sentence on the new charge 9 years out of a
possible 10, the total “fraud” now less than 100,000 USD. I
appealed, the Prosecution protested.

And here we are, today. I am waiting three months for a decision by

the Supreme Cassation Court that is in law only to take one month
to determine what the final charge and sentence will be, i.e. does
the Appeal Court decision stand or is it wrong in law and a new trial
warranted.

It has been 6 years and 1 month and I am still not sure of the result,
could prove to be a new trial that might well continue another 1 or 2
years, Will they keep me in arrest?

Before closing Part III, I wish to explain a point of law. The Bulgarian
legal system has a civil and socialist tradition that bears very little
resemblance to our legal procedures, particularly in criminal law.
There is no legal principle of “natural justice” and “precedent” as is
practiced in the English Common Law on which the USA and
Canada’s legal systems are formed. No judge is bound by a higher
court or international law, and there is no “sentence” until all appeals
are exhausted, prosecutors regularly protesting acquittals or low
sentences. Higher Courts, the Supreme Court are not bound by
other high court decisions, European Court decision while they may
be cited are not considered as binding. Worse yet, all judges,
prosecutors, police detectives and policemen are immune from civil
and common criminal prosecution, and there exits no effective
means to report bias, incompetence, or even criminal corruption.
Often these men and women act with impunity towards the rights of
an accused, and do so solely because there are no consequences
for them.

This ends part III, and brings me up to date. My next section will be
the last, and I will address exactly the questions you raised as well I
will discuss what possible actions in the USA I wished I could
implement but am unable to.

Part IV

The questions you posited were the following:

1. Human Rights Watch?
2. Born in USA?
3. Dual Citizenship?
4. Charges Filed if Any?
5. US Connection, A Stronger Case?
6. Are Patients Deceased? What of Their Families Knowledge of
Situation?
7. Is Canadian Government Working At All?

Many have been answered through the course of treatise, in Part IV

I will discuss them more directly. Although I think the copies of the
two US Federal Lawsuits I have attached will be reasonably
illuminating. All the best.

Best regards

Michael