ROME, August 22. /TASS/. A court in Bologna has upheld the detention of a Ukrainian national arrested in Italy on a German warrant over suspected involvement in the Nord Stream pipelines sabotage, ANSA reported.
According to the agency, the judge reviewed the detention’s compliance with legal norms. The closed-door hearing was attended by the detainee, who was transferred from a prison in Rimini for the session.
The request for extradition to Germany is expected to be considered within two months. Sources told TASS that the process is likely to proceed promptly, as the detention was executed under a European arrest warrant and the extradition involves two EU member states. The next hearing has been scheduled for September 3.
Earlier, the police force in Rimini reported arresting a 49-year-old Ukrainian man in a local hotel on the basis of a European arrest warrant issued in Germany. He is suspected of complicity in organizing sabotage on the Nord Stream and Nord Stream 2 gas pipelines in September 2022. The arrest was announced by German authorities who issued the warrant.
On September 26, 2022, three strings of the Nord Stream and Nord Stream 2 offshore gas pipelines sustained enormous damage. The latter had not yet been put into operation. According to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, Moscow is certain that the Nord Stream sabotage was carried out with US support. The Russian Prosecutor General’s Office has opened an investigation into an act of international terrorism.