Prague – The USA is offering the equivalent of roughly half a billion crowns to the Czech Republic it gained through the sale of financier Viktor Kozeny’s mundane mountain chalet in Colorado, daily Mlada fronta Dnes (MfD) writes today.
The shareholders of the Harvard funds may be thus partly compensated.
In July 2010, a Prague court sent Kozeny, former Harvard funds president, and his business partner Boris Vostry in absentia each to 10 years in prison for the damage of 16 billion crowns they caused to the Harvardsky prumyslovy holding.
The two have to cover the damage, the court decided.
Kozeny and Vostry were tried as fugitives. Kozeny, now an Irish citizen, lives in the Bahamas and Vostry in Belize.
However, the shareholders have only 10 days to claim the money, MfD writes.
Kozeny is considered the architect of the controversial coupon privatisation in the early 1990s.
In the USA, Kozeny has come under the suspicion of bribery when trying to privatise the petrol industry in Azerbaijan.
“The chance of gaining the money in the USA is really big,” the fund’s liquidator Zdenek Castoral is quoted as saying.
The U.S. authorities have confiscated the chalet in Aspen and sold it for an equivalent of 413 million crowns years ago, although Kozeny had it registered to his mother.
According to the prosecutor’s office, Kozeny used the chalet for fraudulent investments.
However, at the end of March the U.S. request to have Kozeny extradited from the Bahamas was rejected. As a result, the prosecutors must return the money to him by May 25, which they do not want to do, MfD writes.
The USA has rapidly informed the Czech authorities that they can claim the money.
“I am rapidly taking all the steps to secure the property, both in the Czech Republic and in the U.S. court,” Castoral has told the paper.
He said the Americans had advised him that the money could also be acquired through a civilian lawsuit in the USA.
Castoral must rapidly hire a lawyer and send the documents to the court.
He is being helped by Czech authorities.
“In general, we can confirm that we have received from the U.S. authorities information on the possibility to claim the money seized in connection with the criminal proceedings against Kozeny in the USA,” Justice Ministry spokeswoman Petra Hruba has told MfD.
Judicial experts say the shareholders have a good chance of succeeding.
The U.S. authorities suspect Kozeny of large-scale bribery within the Azeri oil industry privatisation over a decade ago. U.S. investors then invested 350 million dollars in the operation aimed at gaining a stake in the Socar oil company. Azerbaijan, however, finally did not sell it and the investments became invaluable.
Kozeny pleads not guilty and insists that U.S. anti-corruption law does not apply to him as a foreigner.
($1 = 19.744 crowns)
Author: CTK
www.ctk.cz
