MOSCOW, January 9 (RIA Novosti) – A French court ruled Thursday that a fugitive former Kazakh banker and opposition figure should be extradited to Russia or Ukraine, according to media reports.
Mukhtar Ablyazov, 50, is accused of embezzling billions of dollars from BTA, his former bank in Kazakhstan. A former energy minister, he was arrested in France in July.
The judge approved extradition requests from both countries, but said that Russia's application should take priority, Reuters reported.
Ablyazov’s lawyer said he would appeal Thursday’s ruling, Agence France Press reported.
Kazakhstan is also seeking Ablyazov’s return to the country but has no extradition treaty with France.
BTA was Kazakhstan’s biggest bank before it defaulted on $12 billion of debt and was taken over by the Kazakh government in 2009. Control of the bank passed to the Kazakh sovereign wealth fund Samruk-Kazyna.
Ablyazov, the bank’s former chairman, fled to Britain and was granted political asylum in 2011. He left the country a year later when a High Court judge in London sentenced him to 22 months in prison for contempt of court.
BTA has filed 11 law suits in London accusing its former top management of embezzling $6 billion. Ablyazov claims the charges against him are politically motivated.
The High Court ordered Ablyazov to pay $400 million in damages to BTA in November after ruling that the bank had been defrauded of $300 million in a case relating to a portfolio of AAA-rated securities.
