The United States’ request for the extradition of Czech-born financier Viktor Kozeny is flawed, attorneys for the Lyford Cay resident argued yesterday in the magistrate’s court.<\/p>\n
Attorney Clive Nichols told Magistrate Carolita Bethel that the prosecution had not established a connection that places his client in violation of a U.S. law that was put in place for U.S. citizens.<\/p>\n
Mr. Nichols said that since his client is neither a U.S. citizen nor a resident he is not subject to be prosecuted as one. <\/p>\n
Kozeny was indicted in a New York court back in October under the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. <\/p>\n
U.S. prosecutors are alleging that Kozeny and several others were involved in a plan to bribe officials in Azerbaijan in a move to take control of the state-owned oil company during a privatisation process, and want to try him in a New York court.<\/p>\n
Mr. Nichols argued that there is no evidence in the bundle of documents from the U.S. to support such a link. <\/p>\n
The attorney also scrutinised both the Bahamas’ Extradition Act and the Extradition Treaty between The Bahamas and United States.<\/p>\n
Mr. Nicholls said that Kozeny’s alleged acts of bribery of government officials are not punishable by Bahamian law, and are therefore not covered under the Extradition Treaty.<\/p>\n
He said even if the other side had proven a link that Kozeny was working as an agent for one of the U.S. companies involved in the alleged scheme, there could only be a civil suit filed under the law. <\/p>\n
On Wednesday, prosecutor Francis Cumberbatch produced several sworn affidavits from Kozeny’s alleged co-conspirators seeking to implicate him.<\/p>\n
Those affidavits gave detailed sworn accounts of how Kozeny allegedly bribed high-ranking officials of the former Soviet Republic of Azerbaijan to let him in on the privatization process of the state-owned oil company by underhandedly purchasing special vouchers that were necessary to the process.<\/p>\n
The documents also outlined how Kozeny allegedly transferred millions of dollars to government officials and their relatives, along with offering lavish trips and shopping sprees.<\/p>\n
The case continues today at 10:30 a.m.<\/p>\n
By: Stephen Gay, The Bahama Journal<\/small><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Scandalous financier’s fabulous wealth in the corrupt and dysfunctional Bahamas legal system puts the odds in his favour.<\/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-248726","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-headlines"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248726","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=248726"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248726\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=248726"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=248726"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=248726"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}