Viktor Kozeny, the Czech-born businessman wanted in the U.S. on bribery charges will not be extradited to New York from the Bahamas, the U.K.-based Privy Council ruled.
The Privy Council yesterday affirmed a 2010 ruling by a Bahamas court refusing extradition. Kozeny, dubbed “the Pirate of Prague” in media reports, has been sought by U.S. prosecutors since 2005. He also faces unrelated fraud charges in the Czech Republic.
After the charges were unsealed in 2005, Kozeny spent 19 months in Her Majesty’s Prison at Fox Hill before being released to his family’s home in Lyford Cay, from where he has fought extradition.
“We have prevailed on all points,” Kozeny, 48, said today in an interview from the Bahamas, which he hasn’t left since 1999.
Kozeny expressed gratitude toward his lawyers and said he “felt truly vindicated” by the ruling. “They said it’s not a crime in the Bahamas,” he said. “They said it’s not a violation of the code over here.”
The unanimous ruling by the five-judge council probably eliminates any chance that Kozeny will be returned to the U.S., where he faces federal charges for organizing a 1998 scheme to bribe government officials in Azerbaijan in return for rights to buy Socar, the state oil company.
The Privy Council said in a 22-page decision that it lacked jurisdiction to hear the case. It said Kozeny may not be extradited for bribery crimes that “would not constitute offenses against the law of the Bahamas if they took place within the Bahamas.”
The panel didn’t rule on the merits of the U.S. bribery case. The appeal of the prior extradition ruling was pursued by Bahamas prosecutors and supported by U.S. authorities.
Source: Business Week
