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been released from U.S. Federal Correctional Institution (FCI) Terminal Island in California, a UKRINFORM reporter learned from a prison official. This happened on Thursday, about 4.00 a.m., local time, a UKRINFORM reporter learned from a prison official. Yet now no other details on the release of the ex-official are reported. The Embassy of Ukraine in the United States also does not comment on his release. When asked about Lazarenko, officials at the Consulate General of Ukraine in San Francisco reported that diplomatic office cannot comment on the further stay of the former prime minister in the U.S. or his return to Ukraine. As UKRINFORM reported, Lazarenko, who served as Ukraine's first deputy prime minister in 1995-1996 and as prime minister in 1996-1997, was stripped of deputy immunity in February 1999 and called to account by the Prosecutor General's Office for large-scale embezzlement and other offenses. In February 1999, Lazarenko was detained at New York airport with a passport of a citizen of Panama - for attempting to illegally enter U.S. territory. The detainee asked U.S. authorities for political asylum, but he was charged with the laundering of money illegally obtained and transferred to overseas accounts in 1994-1999. In August 2006 a Californian court sentenced Lazarenko to nine years in prison. In June 2011, Lazarenko's custody was shortened by seven months, to Jan. 11, 2012. It was reported in August 2011 that Lazarenko is to be released from prison on November 1, 2012, rather than on January 11, 2012, as was planned earlier. The description to the video was taken from the article in the Internet: http://www.ukrinform.ua/eng/news/lazarenko_released_from_prison_292373