Free with a clear conscience: the Vienna court refused to hand Firtash over to the United States and released him without bail
The Vienna Regional Court considered Spain's request for the extradition of Ukrainian businessman Dmitry Firtash and decided to release him without paying additional bail.
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Interfax-Ukraine reports this with reference to a message received from Firtash’s lawyers.
By court decision, the detainee surrendered his foreign passport.
On February 21, the Higher Regional Court of Vienna declared Firtash’s extradition to the United States admissible. According to INSIDER, the businessman was detained for 48 hours, during which the Austrian court had to determine a preventive measure for him.
Firtash’s Viennese lawyer, former Austrian Justice Minister Dieter Bemdorfer, then called this decision “unexpected.” He stressed that the businessman’s defense will fight for its abolition.
On November 25, 2016, the anti-corruption prosecutor's office of Spain put Firtash on the international wanted list. According to the department, the Ukrainian businessman is suspected of laundering large sums of money, we are talking about “tens of millions of euros of illegal origin.”
Firtash’s case is being considered by the prosecutor’s office as part of Operation Variola, which began in July 2016 with the arrest in Barcelona of Stepan, the son of former mayor of Kiev Leonid Chernovetsky, and 11 other individuals on suspicion of money laundering. It was the documents found during searches in the case of Stepan Chernovetsky that led the investigation to Firtash, a representative of the prosecutor’s office noted. Chernovetsky himself was released from arrest in the summer, but currently remains under investigation.
Firtash was detained on March 12, 2015 in Vienna at the request of the US Federal Bureau of Investigation, and since then he has been in Austria, awaiting a decision on extradition to the United States. In America, Firtash is suspected of bribing Indian authorities to obtain a license to develop titanium deposits.
In April last year, the Vienna Regional Court refused to extradite the Ukrainian to the United States. The prosecutor's office challenged this decision, but while Firtash's complaint was being considered by the Constitutional Court, in which he demanded that the extradition agreement between Austria and the United States be declared unconstitutional, the appeal was suspended.
In August 2016, the Austrian Constitutional Court refused to consider Firtash's petition. Thus, the court was able to consider the appeal of the prosecutor's office against the decision of the trial court to refuse to extradite Firtash to the United States.
Recall PolitNavigator previously reported that that an Austrian court allowed the extradition of Firtash to the United States, where he faces 50 years in prison with confiscation of property.
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