Nord Stream sabotage suspect to take extradition fight to Italy's top court
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FILE PHOTO: Gas bubbles from the Nord Stream 2 leak reaching surface of the Baltic Sea in the area shows disturbance of well over one kilometre diameter near Bornholm, Denmark, September 27, 2022. Danish Defence Command/Handout via REUTERS/File Photo
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MILAN - A Ukrainian man suspected of coordinating attacks on Nord Stream gas pipelines in the Baltic Sea plans to take his fight against extradition to Italy's highest court after a lower court ordered his transfer to Germany.
The man, identified only as Serhii K. under German privacy laws, was arrested last month near the Italian town of Rimini on a European warrant over explosions in 2022 that crippled the pipelines supplying Russian gas to Germany.
An appeals court in the city of Bologna has approved his handover to German authorities, a ruling reviewed by Reuters on Tuesday showed.
However, the suspect's defence team said he would take his case to the Court of Cassation, Italy's highest court.
"Fundamental rights – fair trial, detention conditions, functional immunity – cannot be sacrificed in the name of automatic judicial cooperation," it said in a statement.
Described by both Moscow and the West as an act of sabotage, the explosions largely severed Russian gas supplies to Europe, prompting a major escalation in the Ukraine conflict and squeezing energy supplies on the continent. No one has taken responsibility for the blasts and Ukraine has denied any role.
The suspect was part of a group of people who planted devices on the pipelines near the Danish island of Bornholm in the Baltic Sea, according to a statement issued by the German prosecutor's office in August.
Defence team lawyer Nicola Canestrini said a hearing at the Court of Cassation on Wednesday would rule on its previous request to overturn the arrest order on the grounds that it had been translated into English rather than the suspect's first language.
The defence has five days to submit a formal appeal against the extradition decision, and any hearing of that appeal would probably be heard in around a month, Canestrini added.
The suspect faces charges of collusion to cause an explosion, anti-constitutional sabotage and destruction of important structures.
German prosecutors allege that he and his accomplices set off from Rostock on Germany's northeastern coast in a sailing yacht to carry out the attack almost three years ago.
Italy's Carabinieri police arrested the man on August 21 in San Clemente, a small town near Rimini on Italy's Adriatic coast, where he was holidaying with his family. REUTERS
