An Italian judge on Thursday found a Russian businessman guilty of helping a Russian governor’s son flee Italy while facing extradition to the United States, according to media reports.
Dmitry Chirakadze was sentenced to three years and two months behind bars for his role in the escape in March 2023 of Artyom Uss, the Corriere della Sera said.
Uss, son of Siberian region governor Alexander Uss, faced US extradition over alleged illegal export of military technology, some of which had been “discovered on the battlefields of Ukraine,” US authorities said.
He was detained at Milan Malpensa airport on a US warrant in October 2022.
The day after an Italian court ordered his extradition to the United States in 2023, he went missing from his residence despite wearing an electronic tracking bracelet.
Several days later he announced he was back in Russia.
Fellow Russian Chirakadze, a Swiss resident, was arrested in June last year for allegedly helping plan Uss’s escape and contacting the members of the gang who pulled it off.
Italian media said Chirakadze was a co-founder of the Pravo.ru group, which provides assistance to Russian court websites.
Announcing the arrest last year, the prosecutor’s office described the then-unnamed suspect as an aristocrat descended from a grand duke of Georgia.
He was also a shareholder in “numerous Russian companies with the involvement of members of the Uss family,” it added.