Kozeny says he needed Irish passports for business

Fugitive businessman Victor Kozeny needed three of his six Irish passports to conduct business in the US, he claimed in a Bahamas court yesterday.

Mr Kozeny, who bought Irish citizenship under the controversial passports-for-investment scheme, denied that his six Irish passports were being used for a complex privatisation scam in which US investors lost tens of millions of dollars.

Mr Kozeny told the court that his first Irish passport, issued in May 1995, contained a travel visa to enter the US. When this passport expired, he travelled on a second Irish passport, but needed the first passport to show that the US travel visa was still valid.

He said he needed the third Irish passport because it contained his Bahamas residency stamp, which allowed him to enter the Bahamas when returning from US business trips.

His lawyer, Philip Davis, told the court that Mr Kozeny was currently using just one valid Irish passport which he was willing to surrender to the court. He said that the court could verify the authenticity of Mr Kozeny's Irish passports with the Irish Government.

Mr Kozeny also claimed yesterday that he was made an honorary ambassador at large for Grenada in 1997, and was therefore entitled to diplomatic immunity. He said that Grenada had never revoked his ambassadorship and he was entitled to avoid extradition to the US.

The case has been adjourned until today so the court can verify the authenticity of his claims.

It emerged this week that Mr Kozeny has been issued six Irish passports and at least two others from the Czech Republic and Venezuela.

He disclosed five of the Irish passports to a Bahamas court last Thursday. However, his lawyer has since said that Mr Kozeny's mother found a sixth Irish passport at Mr Kozeny's Bahamas home, as well as a Czech passport issued in 1994.

Mr Kozeny (42) was indicted in New York this month for allegedly masterminding a multi-million-dollar scheme to bribe officials in Azerbaijan's state-owned oil company during a fraudulent privatisation scheme in which US investors lost over $100 million (€83.6 million).

He was previously indicted in New York for organising the allegedly fraudulent privatisation and is also wanted in his native Czech Republic for allegedly organising another fraudulent privatisation in which 80,000 small investors collectively lost hundreds of millions of dollars.

Mr Kozeny was granted Irish citizenship in 1995 after investing over €1 million in an Irish medical software company.

The Government is to introduce legislation to ensure that the passports-for-investment scheme is never re-introduced.