Czech-financier Viktor Kozeny spent the holiday weekend behind bars at Her Majesty’s Prison and is expected to return to court on Tuesday for the continuation of his bail hearing.
Magistrate Carolita Bethel refused to grant Kozeny bail last Thursday after certain new developments in the case.
Kozeny is wanted in the United States to face trial for his alleged involvement in a reported multimillion-dollar scheme to bribe officials of Azerbaijan’s state-owned oil company in an attempt to benefit from a privatisation scheme.
Two others were also charged with him.
Kozeny’s attorney, Philip “Brave” Davis, argued on Thursday that despite claims made by the prosecutor, Francis Cumberbatch, his client is not a flight risk.
Mr. Cumberbatch has argued that Kozeny holds multiple passports and seems to be able to get them “almost at will”.
In what he called a show of good faith, Mr. Davis presented two other passports in court, which he said Kozeny’s mother found at his Lyford Cay residence.
One of the passports was issued by Ireland on July 26, 2000 and is still valid, according to both the defence and the prosecution.
The other, issued by the Czech Republic, expired last year.
This brought the total number of passports in the court’s possession to eight. Magistrate Bethel acknowledged that the court has in its possession five Irish passports, one photocopy of a sixth Irish passport, one Czech passport and one Venezuelan passport.
But she only acknowledged that one is valid.
After this development on Thursday morning, Magistrate Bethel adjourned the bail hearing to that afternoon to give the prosecution time to examine how the new development affected its case.
When court resumed in the afternoon, Mr. Cumberbatch said that in 1997, Kozeny had at least two valid Irish passports, which he used interchangeably to travel between the United States and The Bahamas.
He used that bit of information to support his case that Kozeny may leave The Bahamas if he is released on bail to await an outcome of the U.S. extradition request.
The prosecution is also concerned that under Venezuelan law, Kozeny would not be extradited if he were to flee The Bahamas for that South American nation.
The issue of his pilot license was also addressed again.
Kozeny had told the court that he has not flown an aircraft since 1999, but the prosecution presented Kozeny’s FAA pilot license that was issued in 2000.
During the hearing, Magistrate Bethel allowed Kozeny to address the court. He said during a meeting with U.S. authorities in November 2000 he entered some kind of special arrangement and was granted freedom from prosecution.
But Kozeny did not go into details of the alleged arrangement.
Mr. Cumberbatch provided documents that he claimed proved that there is no such agreement between the U.S. government and Kozeny.
The prosecutor also pointed out that Kozeny was made an ambassador at large for Grenada in 1997.
During the weekend break, authorities were expected to use the time to determine whether he still had diplomatic status.
The bail hearing is scheduled to resume at 10am Tuesday.
By: Stephen Gay, The Bahama Journal
