A beneficiary of the Irish passport for investments scheme can be extradited to the US to face multimillion-dollar bribery and theft charges, a Bahamas court has ruled.
Victor Kozeny, who has been issued with at least six Irish passports since 1995, has said he will appeal the decision and his lawyers were yesterday preparing habeas corpus proceedings.
A source close to the case said Kozeny's lawyers hoped to have an appeal heard in the Bahamas Supreme Court by the end of the year.
Kozeny, who is also wanted in his native Czech Republic for allegedly defrauding thousands of investors in state privatisation schemes, bought his Irish passport in 1995 by investing in an Irish software company called Irish Medical Systems. That company subsequently closed.
The controversial passport scheme has since been abolished.
At a hearing in the Bahamas this week, magistrate Carolita Bethel approved Kozeny's extradition to New York.
Manhattan federal prosecutors allege that Kozeny was the main figure behind a scheme that defrauded tens of millions of dollars from US investors in the failed privatisation of an Azerbaijani state oil company and have charged him with money laundering and bribery.
At a extradition hearing in the Bahamas before Judge Bethel last October, Kozeny (42), revealed that he had five Irish passports and needed each of them for the various travel stamps needed to enter and leave the US while on business.
At the same hearing, his lawyer said Kozeny's mother had discovered a sixth Irish passport at his Bahamas home, as well as a Czech passport issued in 1994.
The delay in Kozeny's extradition to the US is of enormous frustration to prosecutors in the Czech Republic, who are also seeking his extradition for allegedly defrauding thousands of families while head of a privatisation investment company.
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