ATHENS, December 20. /TASS/. Russian national Alexander Vinnik, who has been jailed in Greece since July 2017 on cybercrime charges, has gone on hunger strike to protest against the Greek justice minister’s decision to extradite him to France, Timofei Musatov, the chief of a group of lawyers representing the Russian, told TASS on Friday.
"Alexander has told me today that he is going on hunger strike," Musatov said.
In late 2018, Vinnik went on hunger strike against judicial outrage and eventually had to be taken to the hospital for treatment.
Vinnik case
Vinnik was detained in Greece on July 25, 2017, at the US request, where he is accused of laundering four to nine bln dollars through the now non-existent BTC-e cryptocurrency trading platform. A court in the Greek city of Thessaloniki made decisions to extradite him to both the United States and France. Russia also submitted a request for his extradition, which was upheld by the Greek Supreme Court. Vinnik denies charges brought by Washington and Paris, saying he is willing to be extradited to Russia.
On Friday, Greek Justice Minister Konstantinos Tsiaras signed an order to extradite Vinnik to France. The Russian’s lawyer told TASS about plans to file an appeal. However, "the decision was made on Friday and an appeal has to be filed within 24 hours, but the defense team has not received the necessary documents yet, while courts are closed on Saturdays, so we can see that obstacles are being put in our way to appeal the decision. We will have to think how to solve this legal issue," Musatov pointed out, adding that an appeal against the justice minister’s decision should be filed with the Supreme Court.