Czech authorities decided at the last moment to try and have Irish financier of Czech origin Viktor Kozeny extradited from the Bahamas, the daily Mlada fronta Dnes (MfD) writes today.<\/P><\/p>\n
Deputy Justice Minister Roman Polasek and two members of the Prague state attorney’s office left for the Bahamas, where Kozeny has stayed for years, on Friday, MfD writes.<\/P><\/p>\n
The United States has requested for Kozeny’s extradition on the charges of corruption and money laundering he allegedly committed during the privatisation of oil industry in Azerbaijan.<\/P><\/p>\n
Kozeny, 43, who claims innocence, has been in custody in the Bahamas since October 5 last year.<\/P><\/p>\n
The trial started in February when the prosecutor explained U.S. accusations and proposed that Kozeny be extradited to the United States.<\/P><\/p>\n
However, Polasek is to try and persuade Bahamian authorities that they should extradite Kozeny to the Czech Republic, MfD writes.<\/P><\/p>\n
“He wants to convince them that the Czech Republic had submitted the request for extradition before the US. Under international conventions, Czechs have priority,” a Justice Ministry official told the paper.<\/P><\/p>\n
Polasek is scheduled to meet two senior officers in the Bahamas – Allyson Maynard-Gibson, Minister of Legal Affairs and General Prosecutor, and prosecutor Francis Cumberbatch who is in charge of the case.<\/P><\/p>\n
This may be good news for Kozeny, MfD writes. If he is sentenced in the US, he may receive the life sentence, while in the Czech Republic he may receive a maximum 12-year sentence, it adds.<\/P><\/p>\n
Kozeny has been wanted by the Czech Republic in connection with a fraud worth 13.6 billion crowns as former head of Harvardsky prumyslovy holding (HPH).<\/P><\/p>\n
Source: CTK Czech News Agency<\/SMALL><\/P><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Czech officials scheduled to meet Allyson Maynard-Gibson, Minister of Legal Affairs and General Prosecutor, and prosecutor Francis Cumberbatch.<\/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-249191","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-headlines"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249191","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=249191"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249191\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=249191"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=249191"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=249191"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}