Австрийский суд отклонил запрос на экстрадицию Дмитрия Фирташа в США.

This is reported by Vienna AT.

The court made this decision on November 7, but announced it on December 4. The Vienna prosecutor's office intends to appeal this ruling by December 16.

American law enforcement suspects Firtash of colluding to bribe officials in India for titanium extraction used in jet engines. The oligarch himself denies any wrongdoing. In the U.S., he faces over 80 years in prison along with asset forfeiture.

What led to this?

Firtash was arrested in Austria in 2014 and subsequently released on bail of 125 million euros, marking the beginning of a legal saga that continues to this day.

Initially, the Vienna court ruled against extradition, claiming the charges were allegedly politically motivated.

However, in February 2017, the Supreme Court deemed this reasoning "insufficiently substantiated" and ruled that Firtash could be extradited to the U.S. In 2019, the Austrian Supreme Court upheld this decision.

The then Minister of Justice of Austria approved the extradition, but a Vienna court judge stated that it could only proceed after the case was reopened.

In March 2022, the Vienna court decided against reopening the case. However, the higher court allowed the extradition process to resume, overturning the 2017 decision.

In June 2019, a federal judge in Chicago dismissed a motion to dismiss the charges against Firtash, arguing that the U.S. lacked jurisdiction over crimes committed in India.

Meanwhile, in Ukraine, the National Security and Defense Council imposed sanctions against Firtash in June 2018 for his involvement in the titanium business and the supply of raw materials to Russia, which were used in military enterprises. However, the oligarch disputes the allegations.

In March 2023, the Security Service and the Bureau of Economic Security announced searches in the offices of 16 regional gas companies across the country. According to the investigation, the top management of these 16 regional gas enterprises is implicated in a large-scale scheme of misappropriating industrial volumes of gas.

These companies are linked to the sanctioned Ukrainian oligarch Dmitry Firtash, as noted by the SBU.