An Austrian court ruled that Dmytro Firtash, a Ukrainian oligarch who is under house arrest in Vienna after being indicted on bribery charges in the United States more than a decade ago, cannot be extradited, ending a seven-year saga against the businessman.
A lower court had put Firtash's extradition on hold last year, citing new evidence. Prosecutors last year appealed that decision. On December 10, the Vienna Higher Regional Court dismissed that appeal on technical grounds.
It was unclear if and when Firtash would be released from house arrest. A spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The decision most likely means the end of the US Justice Department prosecution against him, as well. Firtash was indicted a grand jury in 2013 on bribery charges related to an Indian businessman and valuable metals for supply to Boeing.
The Justice Department had no immediate comment on the court ruling.
Corridors Of Influence
A tycoon who made his fortune in part based on murky natural gas deals involving Russia's state gas giant Gazprom and Ukraine's pipeline network, Firtash was at the height of his influence in Ukraine in the 2000s during the presidency of Viktor Yushchenko.
He later became a major funder of Yushchenko rival Viktor Yanukovych, who went on to become Ukraine's president.
In State Department cables, US diplomats described Firtash as having links to Russian organized crime, including a notorious crime boss named Semyon Mogilevich. Firtash and his lawyers have denied those links.
In March 2014, about a month after Yanukovych fled Ukraine following months of street protests, Firtash was arrested in Vienna, then released to house arrest after posting bail of $174 million.
In a July 2017 filing submitted in US federal court as part of the bribery case, Justice Department prosecutors described Firtash as an "upper-echelon [associate] of Russian organized crime."
While under house arrest, Firtash was briefly drawn into political drama in Washington during the first term of President Donald Trump. One of Trump's lawyers, Rudy Guiliani, persuaded Firtash to hire two US lawyers with ties to the Trump Justice Department.
The lawyers later then obtained a statement from a former Ukrainian prosecutor-general that tried to implicate Trump's rival, Joe Biden, in a scheme involving his son Hunter and the Ukrainian energy company Burisma Holdings. The prosecutor's statement said it was written at the behest of Firtash's lawyers.
Firtash faces embezzlement charges in Ukraine related to the natural gas trade. Last year, Britain barred him from entering the country, and announced it was freezing his assets there for "the bribing of public officials to obtain mining licenses, and...the misappropriation of property from the gas transport network of Ukraine."
