Vienna: An Austria judge yesterday ordered release of Dmytro Firtash, one of Ukraine’s richest men who was detained earlier this week over alleged links to organised crime in Spain.
His arrest on Tuesday came after a Vienna appeals court ruled he could be extradited to the US on bribery charges following a three year-trial.
Spanish and US authorities had filed separate requests for Firtash’s detention, saying he was at risk of flight.
But the court in Vienna said it found no reason to keep him custody because he had already handed in his passport and paid bail of €125m ($130m) when he was first detained in 2014.
The tycoon, who denies all charges, has been under house arrest in Austria over the past three years.
An ex-ally of Ukraine’s ousted pro-Russian president Viktor Yanukovych, Firtash made money through connections with Russian gas giant Gazprom, and was at one time linked to a former campaign aide of US President Donald Trump.
Firtash is wanted in the US over charges that he and five others paid $18.5m in bribes to officials in India to secure titanium mining licences in 2006. The US argues it has jurisdiction because the conspiracy involved using US financial institutions, travel to and from the US, and use of US-based communications—computers and internet.
