Judge Rebuffs U.S. in Rejecting Extradition of Ukraine Billionaire - NYTimes.com
▻http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/01/world/europe/dmitry-v-firtash-extradition.html
In a defeat for the United States, an Austrian judge refused Thursday to order the extradition of Dmitri V. Firtash, a Ukrainian billionaire and onetime patron of the country’s ousted president, Viktor F. Yanukovych, siding with defense lawyers who said the American request was politically motivated.
Mr. Firtash, who made his fortune in Ukraine’s notoriously corrupt natural gas industry, has been charged by federal prosecutors in Chicago with racketeering and other crimes. He and his associates are accused of having paid $18.5 million in bribes to officials in India to secure a titanium-mining deal that never materialized.
The ruling, by Judge Christoph Bauer of the Landesgerichtsstrasse Regional Court in Vienna, amounted to a scathing rebuke of the Justice and State Departments, and reflected the diminished credibility of the United States authorities, even in the eyes of a European ally.
Judge Bauer said that he did not doubt the veracity of two witnesses cited by American prosecutors in their filings, “but whether these witnesses even existed,” because the Justice Department repeatedly refused to provide requested information or respond to questions.
At a hearing that stretched late into the evening, Mr. Firtash’s defense team sought to demolish the American case and discredit the Justice Department’s extradition request.
The main thrust of the team’s arguments, and the issue that clearly dominated the attention of Judge Bauer, was that the case was directed by the State Department in pursuit of larger American foreign policy goals.
In oral arguments, and in testimony by a parade of high-profile witnesses, the lawyers described the American prosecution as an effort to punish Mr. Firtash for his ties to Mr. Yanukovych and his support of Russia, and to sideline him from future political activity in Ukraine.
In perhaps their most electrifying argument, Mr. Firtash’s lawyers asserted that an initial request by the United States for his arrest, on Oct. 30, 2013, was directly tied to a trip to Ukraine by an assistant secretary of state, Victoria Nuland, in which she sought to prevent Mr. Yanukovych from backing out of a promise to sign sweeping political and trade agreements with Europe.
Tous les événements de la suite de la procédure sont directement liés à des visites de ce type…
Même le procureur est mou du genou et l’accusation essaye des artifices de procédure de dernière minute
In the end, even Patrizia Frank, the lone prosecutor representing the Austrian government and, by extension, the United States, acknowledged that not enough had been done to prove that extradition was justified and that the Americans had met the requirements of a bilateral treaty.
In a brief presentation, Ms. Frank said the Austrians had recently received a new statement from an F.B.I. agent that might help clarify things, but that it still needed to be evaluated.
The defense team said that no further time was needed and urged a ruling.
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The rejection of the extradition request does not end Mr. Firtash’s legal problems. The Austrian government could appeal. Even if it does not, it is unclear that Mr. Firtash could return to Ukraine without risking arrest. Mr. Poroshenko’s administration has recently declared an all-out war on oligarchs, seeking to curtail their power and influence, and some officials have leveled specific charges of wrongdoing by subsidiaries of Mr. Firtash’s conglomerate, DF Group.
The Justice Department’s indictment still stands, and Mr. Firtash could be arrested in other countries that have extradition treaties with the United States, as he would remain a wanted man as far as the Justice Department is concerned.