ATHENS, October 22. /TASS/. Greece’s Supreme Court (Areios Pagos) has postponed hearings on the appeal against the decision to extradite Russian national Alexander Vinnik, who is facing cybercrime charges, to France, a TASS correspondent reported from the courtroom on Monday.
Vinnik’s attorney, Zoe Konstantopoulou, said after the six-hour court session, that her client doesn’t want to be extradited to France. She demanded the hearings be postponed to a later date as under the Athens Bar Association’s ruling defense counsels are prohibited to work after 03:00 p.m.
Another session to consider the appeal against Vinnik’s extradition to France was scheduled for November 5.
Vinnik was detained in Greece on July 25, 2017, at the request from the United States, where he is accused of laundering four to nine billion dollars through the now non-existent BTC-e cryptocurrency trading platform. Russia has sought Vinnik’s extradition as well, while France sent a similar request in June.
As for the charges brought by the US, Vinnik told TASS that he was only a technical expert at the BTC-e cryptocurrency trading platform. "I gave some advice to that platform. That’s not a crime, and the exchange itself is not a crime, it is just a platform for exchanging cryptocurrency," the Russian national explained.
Greece’s Supreme Court earlier ruled to extradite Vinnik to the US and, later on, to Russia. Due to the conflicting extradition requests, the decision on Vinnik’s extradition is likely to be made by the country’s Minister of Justice or, possibly, the Greek leadership.