Austria detained Ukrainian oligarch Dmytro Firtash on Tuesday 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 2016, with media reports saying Firtash was accused of belonging to a criminal organisation which had laundered 10 million euros ($10.5 million) 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 $18.5 million 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 125 million euros ($130 million).
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.
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