“The Higher Regional Court of Vienna finally rejected the appeal of the prosecutor’s office regarding the extradition of Ukrainian businessman Dmytro Firtash to the USA”, — write: www.radiosvoboda.org
Vienna’s higher regional court said it decided on December 9 to reject as “unacceptable” the prosecutor’s latest appeal against a November 2024 court ruling that ruled Firtash could not be extradited.
This decision is final.
In 2014, the American prosecutor’s office accused Dmytro Firtash of bribery. Since then, the oligarch has resisted US attempts to extradite him from Austria, where he lives most of the time.
Firtash has been charged in the US with conspiring to receive bribes in India for the extraction of titanium, which is used in jet engines. He denies any wrongdoing, saying the charges against him are politically motivated.
The businessman was arrested in Austria in 2014 and later released on bail of 131 million dollars. The Vienna court initially refused extradition on the grounds that the indictment was politically motivated.
In February 2017, a higher court rejected this argument as “insufficiently substantiated” and ruled that Firtash could be extradited. In 2019, the Austrian Supreme Court confirmed this decision.
The country’s justice minister at the time approved the extradition, but a Vienna court judge ruled that it could only take place after a ruling on the defense’s request for a review of the case. In March 2022, the Land Court of Vienna refused to reopen the case, but in 2023 the higher court decided to allow the extradition proceedings to resume.