Austria’s most high-profile involuntary guest, Ukrainian billionaire Dmytro Firtash, has fought with every available resource to resist extradition to the United States on charges of racketeering and bribery.
While living in an Art Nouveau villa in the posh Hietzing neighborhood of Vienna since early 2014, Firtash’s compulsory stay has been marked by intrigue, media spotlight, and, at times, secrecy regarding the work of his international legal team.
The fate of his stay was thought to have reached a denouement on July 16, 2019, when then-Justice Minister Clemens Jabloner approved his extradition based on a Supreme Court ruling the previous month — usually the final step in Austria’s legal process for such cases.
Then, the 55-year-old gas and chemicals tycoon moved swiftly to file a motion in a lower court to ask for a re-trial, presumably based on new evidence that was not available at the time of his first trial on March 13, 2014.
‘Not standard business’
This was “not standard business,” said Bettina Knoetzl, founding partner of white-collar crime law firm Knoetzl in Vienna, Austria’s capital.
She told the Kyiv Post in a phone interview that such proceedings are not public and that the appellant “has to show there are ‘serious concerns’” that call into question the final judgment of the nation’s highest court. Knoetzl added that a different judge usually hears the new case and decides whether a re-trial is warranted at the same court where Firtash first appeared – the Vienna Regional Criminal Court.
She added that Firtash’s team had probably started compiling the “new” evidence after the Ukrainian lost his appeal in February 2017 — “that’s what we at Knoetzl (law firm) would do,” Knoetzl said.
During these proceedings, the Austrian lawyer said, Firtash can ask for a postponement of his extradition until the court decides whether the new evidence that was submitted is worthy of a re-trial.
When asked for a status update on the oligarch’s pending extradition, Austrian Justice Ministry spokeswoman Christina Salzborn didn’t offer much explanation.
COVID-19 delays
She confirmed that Firtash “submitted a request for a resumption of proceedings,” while adding that “due to the COVID-19 (pandemic), the final deadline for the documents has been postponed many times and the decision is still pending.”
The powerful Ukrainian has maintained his innocence and his base legal argument has consistently been that he is a political victim of the U.S. judicial system that is bent on reducing his influence in Ukrainian politics.
His Group DF holding company didn’t respond to a Kyiv Post emailed inquiry and a spokesman, Oleg Arestarhov, head of the asset management company’s corporate communications, didn’t answer numerous calls or respond to messages.
Shokin’s ‘new’ evidence?
Little is known about the “new” evidence that Firtash has filed except for a sworn affidavit dated Sept. 4, 2019, from former Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin.
In it, Shokin attests that the former U.S. presidential administration of Barack Obama, including then-Vice President Joe Biden, had pressured Kyiv not to let Firtash back into Ukraine after his April 2015 court victory that rejected the extradition.
“Therefore, it is clear to me that certain U.S. officials from President Obama’s administration, in particular the U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, directly manipulated the political leadership of Ukraine on false pretexts, in order to prevent (Firtash) from returning to Ukraine, as they were concerned about him re-establishing public life there,” said the former Ukrainian chief prosecutor.
After only less than 14 months in the post, Shokin was dismissed in March 2016 after calls from anti-corruption activists and Ukraine’s Western backers grew impatient with his lack of progress on reforming the prosecutor general’s office and in pursuing cases of public interest, including an energy firm where Biden’s son had a paid seat on the board.
To substantiate his defense that Washington’s case against him is politically motivated, Firtash’s legal team has argued that the indictment against him was once already unsealed.
US withdraws 2013 arrest warrant
Toward the end of October 2013, Firtash’s defense has argued, the U.S. first had applied for his extradition.
Yet, “shortly before Austria could execute the arrest warrant, however, the Americans withdrew unexpectedly. Firtash remained undisturbed. Later, the Ukrainian’s lawyers claimed in court that this was one piece of evidence that the U.S. extradition request was politically motivated,” Austrian media outlet Profil reported in October 2019.
The defense’s line of argument was that the timing wasn’t right for strategic reasons and when the political situation changed after the EuroMaidan uprising, the U.S. “decided to take Firtash… out of the political game,” the media outlet wrote.
$18.5 million in bribes
An April 2014 unsealed U.S. Justice Department indictment in Chicago alleges that Firtash had sought a titanium deal in India and conspired to pay $18.5 million in bribes to secure mining licenses there. He allegedly “used U.S. financial institutions to engage in the international transmission of millions of dollars for the purpose of bribing Indian public officials.”
Ultimately, the project was expected to generate more than $500 million from the sale of the titanium products, including to an unnamed company based in Chicago whom U.S. media identified as aviation giant Boeing.
In turn, Boeing has stated that it had “considered business with Firtash but never followed through,” Voice of America reported in July 2019.
Boeing is not accused of wrongdoing.
US pursues case
The U.S. is still pursuing Firtash’s extradition and in June 2019, the same month that the Austrian Supreme Court approved his expulsion, a federal judge in Chicago rejected a motion to dismiss his indictment based on jurisdiction matters.
As recent as Feb. 10, the U.S. Justice Department told the Kyiv Post that it continues “to work closely with the Austrian Ministry of Justice seeking to extradite Mr. Firtash,” Nicole Oxman, the department’s senior communications advisor for international law enforcement and spokesperson, wrote in an email.
Firtash & Yanukovych
From the outset when authorities in Vienna arrested Firtash nearly seven years ago, the news made headlines.
A media frenzy ensued in the wake of the EuroMaidan Revolution in Ukraine when then-President Viktor Yanukovych abandoned office and fled to Russia following a popular uprising against his corrupt, increasingly authoritarian rule.
Firtash had further enriched himself during Yanukovych’s truncated presidency and was a huge financial backer.
When the Ukrainian tycoon posted a record bail of 125 million euros (about $174 million) on March 21, 2014, provided by Russian billionaire Vasiliy Anisimov, Russia had already forcibly seized Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula.
In April a year later, Firtash’s high-caliber legal team, consisting among others of former Austrian Justice Minister Dieter Bohmdorfer, secured a rejection of the U.S. extradition request based on arguments that the case was politically motivated.
The same year in March 2015, Firtash founded the Agency for the Modernization of Ukraine and stacked its board with prominent European politicians. Within 200 days of its founding, it released an agenda to reform Ukraine and Firtash voiced his intention of returning to Ukraine to give a presentation at his Federation of Employers of Ukraine in Kyiv.
Some of the board members included Austria’s former Vice-Chancellor and Minister of Finance Michael Spindelegger and former German Finance Minister Peer Steinbruck.
‘All the buttons one can press’
“Of course, (Firtash) wants to press all the buttons one can press to make sure he is not extradited,” Knoetzl said. “He is certainly investing a lot of energy and resources into this. From what I see he is doing the best he knows to do – to help him make his case.”
Simultaneously, Firtash successfully fought back against an extradition case to Spain on charges of being part of an organization to launder about 10 million euros through property deals and restaurants. He denied the charges.
Six months after an Austrian appeals court overturned a lower court’s ruling that he shouldn’t be extradited to the U.S., a Vienna criminal court rejected the Spanish extradition request.
A Spanish court in Barcelona closed the money laundering case against Firtash and 16 other suspects in November 2019.
Marta Vivas Chamorro of the Spanish State Attorney General’s Office told the Kyiv Post that “we cannot provide any information about this case.”
Hiring Toensing, DiGenova
Meanwhile, Firtash in autumn 2019 hired Washington-based lawyers Victoria Toensing and Joseph DiGenova to join his high-powered legal team.
The couple are huge Republican Party donors and during Donald Trump’s presidency briefly helped defend him during Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into the 2016 U.S. presidential election and also were mentioned in the U.S. House of Representatives’ Intelligence Committee impeachment report.
Firtash told the New York Times he hired Toensing and DiGenova under the premise that they could help “with his Justice Department problems.”
The offer to hire them came on June 19, Firtash told the newspaper, and came from two associates of the former U.S. president’s personal attorney: Rudy Giuliani.
The associates, Lev Parnas and Igor Furman, are currently under indictment on campaign finance charges. Parnas worked as an English-language interpreter for Firtash’s legal team.
One month before he was charged by U.S. authorities, the wife of Lev Parnas received $1 million from a Russian bank from one of Firtash’s lawyers.
Firtash also pursued a Manhattan hotel deal that never came to fruition with Paul Manafort, Trump’s former campaign chairman who helped Yanukovych ascend the Ukrainian presidency as a political consultant and lobbyist.
Manafort was convicted in 2018 in Mueller’s investigation for financial fraud and conspiring to obstruct his probe and subsequently sentenced to seven-and-a-half years in prison. Trump pardoned in him in December.
Firtash’s business empire
In Ukraine, Firtash runs a fertilizer business, and owns a media empire as well as enjoys control over about 70-75% of the gas distribution and supply market, known as oblgases.
Eighteen of the oblgases tied to him were fined Hr 380 million ($13.5 million) in December by the nation’s competition authority for abusing their monopoly position on the market. In 2019, 16 of the oblgases were fined about $9 million by the same anti-trust agency.
In addition, Firtash allegedly used funds his former bank had received from Ukraine’s central bank as part of a five-installment bailout program to buy a near-controlling stake in the state-owned Zaporizhzhya Titanium and Magnesium Plant — Europe’s only producer of titanium sponge, a September report by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) said.
Instead of investing the promised $110 million into the plant under the partial privatization deal for 49% of shares, the plant’s management diverted the funds to other Firtash-controlled entities, OCCRP reported, citing the National Anti-Corruption Bureau.
Following numerous court cases, Ukraine regained operational control over the plant in June 2020.
In Russia, whose banks had largely bankrolled Firtash’s procurement of Ukrainian assets during Yanukovych’s reign from 2010 through early 2014, it was revealed in January that about $1.3 billion worth of the oligarch’s assets are being held as collateral at a Russian nonprofit called Foundation of Industrial Assets.
They previously were part of a portfolio of non-performing loans belonging to the Russian state-run Bank for Development and Foreign Economic Affairs, Russian media reported, including RBK. They include assets Firtash’s Vienna-based Ostchem chemical holding that control most of Ukraine’s chemical fertilizer producers.
In a response to questions from Interfax news agency, Firtash’s Group DF holding company said it “does not comment on the commercial terms of lending to our businesses.”
Timeline of Dmytro Firtash case
June 2013: a U.S. Justice Department five-count criminal indictment of Dmytro Firtash is returned under seal.
March 2014: Firtash is arrested in Vienna based on a U.S. extradition request; released on record bail of 125 million euros and promises to remain in Austria for the duration of legal proceedings.
April 2014: U.S. Justice Department unseals Firtash indictment charging him with international racketeering and bribery.
March 2015: Firtash establishes the Agency for the Modernization of Ukraine and stacks it with high-profile European politicians.
April 2015: Vienna Regional Court rejects U.S. extradition request, rules case is politically motivated.
August 2016: Austrian Constitutional Court refuses to consider appeal by Firtash to recognize the U.S.-Austrian extradition treaty as unconstitutional.
November 2016: A Spanish court in Barcelona approves extradition of Firtash on suspicion of money laundering.
February 2017: Spain officially requests extradition of Firtash: a higher Austrian court overturns a lower-level court’s rejection of extradition.
August 2017: Austrian court denies extradition of Firtash to Spain.
June 2019: Austrian Supreme Court approves extradition of Firtash.
July 2019: Then-Austrian Justice Minister Clemens Jabloner approves extradition of Firtash; lower court agrees to examine new evidence to determine whether to reopen the extradition case.
November 2019: A Spanish court rules to close the money laundering case related to Firtash.
