Magistrate Carolita Bethel on Wednesday again delayed making a decision on whether to grant bail to Lyford Cay resident, Viktor Kozeny, and also said that she was not sure if she had the legal authority to do so.<\/p>\n
Magistrate Bethel instead adjourned the matter to Friday morning after Prosecutor Francis Cumberbatch said he had received unconfirmed reports that Kozeny – who is a citizen of Ireland and Venezuela – may be a citizen of a third country, which was not named.<\/p>\n
The United States wants The Bahamas to extradite Kozeny to face trial there in relation to an alleged scheme to bribe officials of Azerbaijan’s state-owned oil company.<\/p>\n
He was indicted in a New York court two weeks ago along with two other men.<\/p>\n
Prosecutors here argue that because of Kozeny’s multi-citizenship he would be a flight risk if granted bail.<\/p>\n
Kozeny, a permanent resident in The Bahamas, is also a trained pilot, although it remained unclear whether his U.S.-issued pilot license is valid.<\/p>\n
On Wednesday, Magistrate Bethel questioned whether she had the authority to grant Kozeny bail after she examined case transcripts and the Extradition Act.<\/p>\n
The hearing has dragged on for two weeks due to new information being presented.<\/p>\n
Mr. Cumberbatch also addressed the question of whether Kozeny still has diplomatic status.<\/p>\n
He said he received two letters from officials of Grenada, which said Kozeny was appointed as an honorary consul to the Bahamas for Grenada.<\/p>\n
Mr. Cumberbatch presented the court with a letter from the Minister of Foreign Affairs in Grenada, which stated that Kozeny was appointed to the office on September 28, 1998 and was recalled on December 26, 1999.<\/p>\n
Mr. Cumberbatch also presented a letter from the director of financial intelligence in Grenada, which also confirmed that Kozeny had been an honorary ambassador for that country and had been in possession of a diplomatic passport.<\/p>\n
According to Mr. Cumberbatch, the letter stated that Kozeny’s passport was seized in 2000 and his diplomatic status was revoked in 2003.<\/p>\n
On Friday when Kozeny addressed the court, he had said that to his knowledge he was still a diplomat.<\/p>\n
Magistrate Bethel had said it was necessary to clear up the issue of Kozeny’s diplomatic status because diplomats are afforded certain privileges.<\/p>\n
After Mr. Cumberbatch revealed that Kozeny may have a third citizenship, Magistrate Bethel gave both sides time to confirm whether this was true.<\/p>\n
Kozeny is being represented by Philip “Brave” Davis, but has other high-profile attorneys like Brian Moree on his legal team.<\/p>\n
Czech reporters were present at Wednesday’s hearing and more are expected when the hearing resumes on Friday.<\/p>\n
At the end of Wednesday’s preceding, one of the reporters attempted to interview Kozeny in his native tongue, but police officers told them that it was not allowed.<\/p>\n
The reporters told The Bahama Journal that Kozeny had indicated that he was okay.<\/p>\n
By: Stephen Gay, The Bahama Journal<\/small><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A magistrate that has been accused of taking bribes and a gaggle of allegedly corrupt attorneys appear to be fishing for a way out of the extradition treaty.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_10223285771444175_51037792744":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-247993","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-headlines"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247993","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=247993"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247993\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=247993"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=247993"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=247993"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}