Ukrainian billionaire wins his fight to avoid extradition to US
|
Version 0 of 1. Dmitry Firtash, a Ukrainian billionaire with high-level contacts among British politicians and mandarins, will not be extradiated to the US on bribery charges after the FBI’s case against him failed. The gas oligarch, who is said to have made billions of dollars under the regime of the ousted president Viktor Yanukovych, was arrested last March while in Austria and has been banned from leaving. At yesterday’s extradition hearing in Vienna, he claimed the allegations were entirely political, based on American fears that he was pro-Russian and would not support Washington’s attempts to gain influence in the Ukraine crisis. Mr Firtash said Washington’s goal in Ukraine was to steer the country away from Russia and towards a European free-trade accord. Separately, on the eve of his Vienna courtroom battle, the Government in Kiev launched criminal proceedings against Ostchem, one of Mr Firtash’s DF Group of companies. This was seen by some as further evidence that Mr Firtash was being squeezed for political reasons by the US and Ukraine’s West-leaning Prime Minister, Arseniy Yatsenyuk. DF Group issued a statement claiming the proceedings in Ukraine were “part of the planned and prolonged campaign for political repression of Group DF and its owner”. A key plank in Mr Firtash’s defence of political meddling was his claim to the extradition hearing judge that there had been an earlier request by Washington for his arrest as far back as 2013. This had been timed solely, Mr Firtash claimed, so Washington could pressurise his ally, the then president Mr Yanukovych, to sign trade and political deals with Europe. Mr Firtash claims the FBI’s arrest warrant was withdrawn four days later, when Mr Yanukovych had agreed to the deals. As proof, he said the first warrant was granted when the assistant secretary of state, Victoria Nuland, was on a trip to persuade Mr Yanukovych to fall into line. Washington then did nothing about its corruption allegations until four days after Mr Yanukovych was ousted last February, he said. The FBI says it wants Mr Firtash to be sent to America to be tried for charges of paying $18.5m (£12m) in bribes to officials in India. Mr Firtash’s legal team said these claims had no evidence to support them. Last year, The Independent exposed the deep links Mr Firtash had forged with British parliamentarians including senior Conservatives John Whittingdale, chairman of the powerful Commons media select committee, and Lord Risby, a former vice-chairman of the Conservative Party. One of DF Group’s top executives, Robert Shetler-Jones, has donated tens of thousands of pounds to the Conservatives through a company called Scythian. |