You're reading: Vienna prosecutors challenge court’s denial of US request to extradite Firtash

Ukrainian tycoon Dmytro Firtash's legal troubles aren't over yet. The one-time ally of disgraced ex-President Viktor Yanukovych and former monopoly gas supplier will have to appear in the Appellate Court of Vienna next year as prosecutors try again to have him extradited to the U.S. on bribery charges.

 

Categorically denying the allegations, Firtash and his lawyers convinced a lower Viennese court on April 30 that his indictment in the U.S. and the Justice Department’s request to extradite him was politically motivated and centered on a geopolitical battle between America and Russia.

Austrian prosecutors filed the appeal on Oct. 23, said Christina Salzborn, spokeswoman for the Regional Court for Criminal Matters that heard Firtash’s case.

It was submitted right after the court issued the written ruling to Firtash and prosecutors. On Oct. 10 Firtash, 50, told Interfax Ukraine that he would return to Ukraine immediately after he receives a written ruling.

“As soon as that (receipt of ruling) happens, I’ll go home (to Ukraine),” he told Interfax. He was given his passport back when the Judge Christoph Bauer ruled in his favor last Spring.

When contacted by the Kyiv Post, the prosecutor’s office in Vienna wouldn’t provide any details of the case.

Firtash was arrested in Vienna in March 2014 on a warrant from the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation. He indicted in a U.S. federal court on charges that he and five other businessmen allegedly conspired to give an $18.5 million bribe to an Indian politician in exchange for a license to develop oil fields in India.

He was later released on bail for $173 million. It was paid by Vasily Anisimov, the billionaire who heads the Russian Judo Federation, the governing body of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s favorite sport.

Firtash has denied the accusations and described the case against him as politically motivated and aimed to punish him for his support of Yanukovych and his close ties to the Kremlin. Firtash had controlled the supply of gas to Ukraine in 2006-2009 through RosUkrenergo, a Swiss company he founded with Russia’s Gazprombank. During this time, Russia twice shut off gas to Ukraine.

During the spring hearing, Firtash boasted of brokering an agreement in Vienna just days before posting Austria’s record-high bail with then presidential hopefuls Petro Poroshenko and Vitali Klitschko. Two days later Klitschko endorsed Poroshenko, a billionaire confectioner, for president, while the other announced his support for the former boxing champion’s mayoral candidacy of Kyiv.

Both Poroshenko and Klitschko subsequently said they had met with Firtash in Vienna, but didn’t discuss any political arrangement.

Kyiv Post staff writer Alyona Zhuk can be reached at [email protected]