ATHENS, December 20. /TASS/. Defense lawyers of Russian national Alexander Vinnik, who has been kept in a Greek prison since July 2017 on cybercrime charges, have appealed to Greece’s Council of State, or the country’s Supreme Administrative Court, asking to delay his extradition to France, Vinnik’s lawyer Timofei Musatov told TASS on Friday.

"We have lodged a petition of cassation and an application for respite [of the extradition verdict] with Greece’s Supreme Administrative Court (Council of State)," he said.

On Friday, Greek Justice Minister Konstantinos Tsiaras took a decision to extradite Vinnik to France, although Greece had said that the European warrant issued by Paris, was no longer valid. Following this decision, Mustaov promised to challenge it and Vinnik went on a hunger strike in protest.

Vinnik case

Vinnik was detained while vacationing in Greece on July 25, 2017 at the United States’ request, where he is accused of laundering four billion to nine billion US dollars through a no longer existent Internet exchange of cryptocurrencies BTC-e. The Thessaloniki court of appeals and the Greek Supreme Court ruled Vinnik be extradited to the United States and France. Russia is also seeking his extradition and has corresponding verdict of the Greek Supreme Court. Vinnik denied Washington’s and Paris’ charges and agreed to be extradited to Russia.

Earlier in December, Vinnik’s Greek lawyer Zoe Konstantopoulou filed a protest with the Greek Supreme Court against France’s extradition warrant, saying it no longer valid as it had been issued in June 2018, or 11 months after Vinnik had been put in a Greek prison.

According to the lawyer, the European warrant has a flagrant discrepancy as it says that the crimes attributed to Vinnik were committed in a period from January 1, 2016 to June 14, 2018 whereas the mad was kept in a Greek prison part of this period and could not commit crimes in any other country but Greece.