Austria has detained Ukrainian oligarch Dmytro Firtash yesterday over alleged links to organised crime in Spain, shortly after a Vienna court approved his extradition to the US on separate corruption charges.
Police took the gas magnate into custody as he left the packed courtroom surrounded by his lawyers and bodyguards.
The dramatic arrest of one of Ukraine’s richest men took place just after the appeals court in Vienna unexpectedly ruled that he should be handed over US authorities.
The shock decision overturned a 2015 verdict by a lower court, which had rejected the US request on the grounds that it was politically motivated.
Although the latest ruling cannot be appealed, the final extradition decision lies with the justice minister.
The prosecutor’s office refused to comment on the Spanish case or how Firtash’s arrest would affect the extradition ruling.
Authorities in Barcelona had issued a European arrest warrant in November last year, with media reports saying that Firtash was accused of belonging to a criminal organisation which had laundered €10mn ($10.5mn) in Spain.
But when the warrant was issued, the tycoon was already under house arrest in Austria over the US allegations.
Firtash, 51 – a one-time ally of Ukraine’s ousted president Viktor Yanukovych – is wanted in the US over charges that he and five others paid $18.5mn in bribes to officials in India to secure titanium mining licences in 2006.
The United States argues that its laws applied because the conspiracy involved using US financial institutions, travel to and from the US, and use of US-based communications – computers, telephones, and the Internet.
Firtash was arrested in Vienna in March 2014, but released on a record Austrian bail of €125mn ($130mn).
He has denied all charges and maintained he was the victim of a smear campaign.
His legal team argued that he was caught up in a larger battle over the future of Ukraine, where the government has been engaged in bloody fighting with Russian-backed separatists in the east since 2014.
A lower court in Vienna sided with the gas magnate in April 2015 and rejected the US request.
But the appeals court said yesterday that the US had provided “sufficient” proof that Firtash “may have committed the crimes he is accused of”.
“(The ruling) means simply that it’s up to another country to decide whether he’s guilty or not,” judge Leo Levnaic-Iwanski said.
The move dealt a blow to Firtash who had said he would “return home immediately” after the verdict, in comments made shortly before the decision.
“I want justice,” he told reporters in Vienna.
Firtash owns Group DF, a business empire involved in energy, chemicals, media, banking and property in Ukraine and other countries including Germany, Italy and Austria.
He made his fortune importing gas to Ukraine from Russia and Central Asia via his group Rosukrenergo, since disbanded, in collaboration with Russian gas giant Gazprom.
Having backed the 2010 election campaign of Yanukovych, Firtash was able to expand his business interests, acquiring chemicals and fertiliser factories as well as TV channel Inter.
The Russian-backed Yanukovych was ousted in protests in February 2014, and Firtash’s arrest in Austria came soon afterwards, although officials deny any link.
Observers say that US authorities want to detain Firtash because he holds information on close allies of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“The case against Firtash in the United States will not be limited only to the bribery allegations in India,” said Ukrainian MP Sergiy Leshchenko, a former journalist who used to investigate Firtash’s case. “He is very valuable not only as a defendant but as witness too.”

Related Story