Victor Kozeny’s Extradition From the Bahamas Is Denied

The Bahamas News Online Edition (The Bahama Journal) reports today that the Supreme Court there has ruled against the extradition of Victor Kozeny (left). The ruling means Kozeny is no longer under arrest in the Bahamas, which had detained him at the request of the U.S. government. He was indicted in the United States in October 2005 for violating and conspiring to violate the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act in connection with a scheme to bribe senior government officials in Azerbaijan.

On June 21, 2007, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York dismissed all FCPA and related counts against Kozeny and his co-defendants, Frederic Bourke, Jr. and David Pinkerton, based on the running of the five-year statute of limitations. The Justice Department's appeal against the dismissal is still pending. If the charges are reinstated, only Bourke and Pinkerton will now go to trial.

According to the report, the Bahamas court said the FCPA charges against Kozeny were not provable or prosecutable under local law, and there was an abuse of the court process. Apparently the U.S. government did not properly disclose the U.S. trial court's dismissal of the FCPA charges on statute of limitations grounds, a failing the Bahamas judge cited as a reason for the ruling.

Victor Kozeny is from the Czech Republic. He reportedly has Irish citizenship and has lived in the Bahamas for more than a decade. American prosecutors had sought evidence against him and his co-defendants from the Netherlands and Switzerland. Delays in obtaining the evidence led to the running of the statute of limitations in the U.S. prosecution.

View the report from the Bahamas News Online Edition Here.

View a prior post about Victor Kozeny Here.