MOSCOW, November 30 (Itar-Tass) — Russia has not yet received any official documents from Poland concerning the extradition of former Moscow Region First Deputy Prosecutor Alexander Ignatenko charged with illegal gambling, law enforcement agencies told Itar-Tass.
“We have not received any documents so far,” they said.
On Wednesday evening, November 28, Polish Minister of Justice Jaroslaw Gowin said that the ex-deputy prosecutor detained in the south of the country would soon be handed over to Russia.
“This person will be transferred to the Russian prosecutor’s office soon,” he said and emphasised that “he can be tried only on some of the charges brought against him”. “It is on these conditions only that Ignatenko can be extradited to Russia,” Gowin added.
He said that the decision on the extradition was made only after receipt of guarantees from Russia that all Polish conditions concerning the sphere of liability and punishment that can be applied to the former prosecutor would be met.
It is not known as yet when Ignatenko will be extradited to Moscow.
However, Polish Deputy Minister of Justice overseeing international contacts Michael Krulikowski said that Ignatenko would be extradited to Russia on February 9.
“The extradition should take place before the end of the term of the temporary arrest. There are no procedures that would limit us in terms of time. It is a purely technical question,” he said.
“The decision on extradition has been made,” Krulikowski said. “There are no doubts about that, but the question of organising the transfer remains.” This process of coordination can continue until the end of the pre-extradition arrest, that is, until February 9.
The Polish police will take Ignatenko to the border where he will be met by Russian officials, the deputy minister added.
According to the existing procedures, the detainee can be tried only on those charges with which the extraditing state has agreed. According to Krulikowski, Poland has no doubt only about the charge of corruption.
In Russia the former first deputy prosecutor of Moscow Region has been charged with protecting illegal gambling business in the region. He was put on the wanted list through Interpol on charges of fraud and bribe-taking in the amount of 47 million roubles from alleged organisers of underground casinos. On January 1, 2012, the ex-prosecutor was detained by Poland’s Internal Security Agency when leaving the resort town of Zakopane, where he had arrived several days earlier it to meet his family.
Five court hearings have been held on the Ignatenko case in Poland. The most crucial of them, held at Krakow’s Appeals Court on March 7, ended with a non-contestable verdict allowing the Polish authorities to extradite the detainee to Russia, but the final decision, according to the Polish laws, has to be made by the Ministry of Justice.
The Polish ministry department had studied the documents received from Moscow and came to the conclusion that “some of the charges stated in the request for extradition and not related to bribery, were based on rules of law that were no longer valid”. This delayed the decision on his extradition.
Pending extradition, Ignatenko has spent nearly a year in Polish prison. On October 5, the Nowy Sacz District Court ruled to extend the term of his detention till February 9, 2013.