Former Ukrainian Prime Minister Pavlo Lazarenko is to be released from prison in the United States on November 1, 2012, rather than on January 11, as planned earlier, Channel 1+1 reported on Friday.
Chris Burke, a spokesman for the Federal Bureau of Prisons, said that on August 4, 2011, Lazarenko had been transferred from the Federal Correctional Institution (FCI) in Dublin (California) to FCI Terminal Island, a low-security prison for men (also in California).
Burke declined to say why the prison term had been changed, referring to his incompetence in this matter.
As reported, Lazarenko was convicted in the United States of embezzling funds illegally received and transferring them to foreign accounts in 1994-1999. A Californian court sentenced Lazarenko to nine years in prison in August 2006. He remained in his apartment in San Francisco under house arrest pending the consideration of the appeal against his conviction.
In June 2010, the prison sentence for Lazarenko was reduced by seven months, and he was to be released on January 11, 2012.
Lazarenko headed the Ukrainian government from June 1996 to June 1997.
