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Supreme Court of Greece rules to extradite Russian citizen Vinnik to France

As there are several conflicting extradition requests, the final decision will apparently be made by the minister of justice or, probably, the Greek leadership

Alexander Vinnik AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris

Alexander Vinnik

© AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris

ATHENS, December 19. /TASS/. The Supreme Court of Greece (Areios Pagos) upheld the ruling by the Thessaloniki Court of First Instance at its session on Wednesday on extraditing Russian national Alexander Vinnik kept in a Greek prison since July 2017 to France, a TASS correspondent reported from the courtroom.

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"The court turned down the defense attorneys' appeal against the ruling by the Thessaloniki Court of First Instance to extradite the Russian national to France, Presiding Judge Angelique Aliferopoulou announced.

Vinnik was detained in Greece on July 25, 2017, at the request of the United States, where he is accused of laundering $4-9 bln through the now non-existent cryptocurrency trading platform BTC-e. Russia has been pressing for his extradition too. In June, an extradition request was filed by France. In 2017, the Supreme Court made a decision in favor of extraditing Vinnik to the United States. This year it ruled the man should be extradited to Russia. The Thessaloniki Court of First Instance likewise ruled to extradite Vinnik to France. The defense team appealed against the court ruling, but it was turned down by the Supreme Court.

As there are several conflicting extradition requests, the final decision will apparently be made by the minister of justice or, probably, the leadership of Greece.

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