years ago. German authorities believe the suspect placed explosives on the pipeline in the Baltic Sea and are now seeking his extradition to Germany. Croatian police detained Volodymyr Z on a European arrest warrant.
But now Germany might get a second chance at prosecuting Volodymyr Z. Courts in Croatia will decide on the extradition and its admissibility. The accused, of course, has the right to appeal. Whether such a decision can be reached always depends on the individual case.
German authorities say that they are seeking the extradition of a Ukrainian man suspected of helping sabotage the Nord Stream 2 gas pipelines in the Baltic Sea. He has been arrested in Croatia. The arrest revives a
But innocent or guilty, before Volodymyr Z faces charges in Germany, Croatia's judicial system will first have to decide on his extradition . And now for more on this, let's bring in Benjamin Schmidt. He is a senior fellow with the Democratic Resilience Program at the Center for European Policy
this case, this is a real movie that seems to have resulted in the the arrest of someone who may or may not be guilty given that he's already been able to successfully get out of extradition to Germany last year and to Poland. So we're going to have to keep following this. It's a wild wild story and now the Hollywood press is going to be involved as well as the geopolitical
When the French authorities took me into custody on that warrant, they realized I had forged checks all over France. So they refused to honor the warrant and Sweden's request for my extradition . They later convicted me of forgery and sent me to French prison.
the explosives to the gas pipelines. The man was also briefly detained in Poland last September, but the Polish courts rejected extradition at that time.
Or there was also, because we're talking about institution, there is also a fear from insider fraud, that one of the employees will basically misappropriate and will pull the funds into his own wallet and take the next flight to a place where there is no extradition . So that was like the second big problem.
to those countries at all. And indeed, they would probably not be liable to extradition , because you can't extradite somebody who's going to face the death penalty in the country to which they are going, unless there's a copper-bottomed guarantee by that government that they will not be executed.
He's put himself in a position of never being able to clear his name on that count. I told him at the time, regardless of all the threats of extradition , all the threats-- and I know that's easy for us to say, but if you're brave, you're brave. You stand up for what you published, and you go and face whatever these terrifying and awful threats are.
And they, of course, could not be prosecuted here, because the crime had been committed in Belarus or Poland. And they couldn't be prosecuted there, because when the Iron Curtain was up, there was no question of any extradition in relation to those countries at all.
We have no evidence that the Obama White House was complicit in developing the sexual misconduct charges against Assange after WikiLeaks' three big disclosures last year. It may be just a coincidence that following immediately upon the disclosures, our friend Sweden issued an extraordinary international arrest warrant seeking Assange's extradition on a charge of failing to use a promised condom.