LONDON - Portsmouth Football Club's Russian owner Vladimir Antonov and his business partner were bailed until Dec. 16 on Friday when they appeared at a London court in connection with alleged fraud and asset-stripping at a Lithuanian bank.
Antonov, 36, and Lithuanian Raimondas Baranauskas, 53, were arrested on Thursday after Lithuanian prosecutors requested their extradition.
Both are shareholders and former managers of the bank, Bankas Snoras. They deny any wrongdoing.
During a brief hearing at Westminster magistrates’ court, both men spoke only to confirm their identities and register their unwillingness to be extradited.
Lithuania’s central bank is to apply to make Bankas Snoras, the country’s fifth-largest bank, bankrupt after the government nationalised it last week amid allegations of fraud.
Central bank chief Vitas Vasiliauskas told a news conference in Vilnius that regulators had found a hole in the assets of Snoras Bank equal to 3.4 billion Lithuanian litas ($1.31 billion).
Neighbouring Latvia on Monday also seized control of Snoras’s 68-percent owned subsidiary, Latvijas Krajbanka, saying it had a hole of about 100 million lats ($191 million).
Antonov, of west London, owned more than 60 percent of Snoras, and Baranauskas, who lives in Kent, southern England, owned a stake of just over 25 percent before the bank was nationalised.
Antonov made an unsuccessful attempt to buy Swedish auto maker Saab earlier this year.
His company, CSI, bought Portsmouth FC in June this year. The storied club, two-times champions of England, now plays in England’s second highest division after financial difficulties drove it into administration and it was relegated from the Premiership at the end of the 2009-10 season.
