A Czech-born fugitive who bought an Irish passport under the "passports for investment" scheme will walk free from multimillion dollar bribery charges because he is an Irish citizen, his lawyer has claimed, writes Seán O'Driscoll, in New York
Viktor Kozeny (42) has been charged in New York with 27 counts of bribery in an unsuccessful attempt to take control of the state oil company in Azerbaijan, the former Soviet state.
But his lawyer in New York, Benjamin Brafman, told The Irish Times this weekend the charges Kozeny faces cover only US citizens accused of bribing foreign officials.
Mr Kozeny has been an Irish citizen since 1995, when the then minister for justice Nora Owen granted him a certificate of naturalisation after he invested some €1.27 million in a software company.
In a written statement, Mr Brafman said: "Mr Kozeny is not a United States citizen and accordingly the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act does not apply to him - nor can he be prosecuted for charges that relate to any payments allegedly made by him to foreign officials."
A well-known figure in legal circles, Mr Brafman is best known as lawyer for the controversial singer Michael Jackson.
His claim that Mr Kozeny's Irish citizenship could protect him from extradition appears to be supported by the guidelines that govern how the US Department of Justice enforces the Corrupt Foreign Practices Act. Under a 1998 amendment, those guidelines say that foreign citizens are covered by the act only if they cause a bribe to be paid "within the territory" of the US.
However, New York prosecutors will be hoping to show that Kozeny acted through a US company to bribe Azerbaijan officials, and can therefore be prosecuted.
Mr Kozeny's Irish passport may give him a second chance at beating the case because there is no comparable legislation to the Foreign Corrupt Practices Law in Ireland, and Ireland does not permit its citizens to be extradited for acts that would not be crimes in Ireland.
Mr Brafman said that the extradition issue has yet to be decided.
"Mr Kozeny and his attorneys are in the process of reviewing the indictment and will soon decide whether Mr Kozeny intends to fight extradition from the Bahamas or voluntarily return to the United States to answer these charges," he said.
A spokesman for the Department of Foreign Affairs said yesterday that Mr Kozeny has not sought consular assistance since his arrest in the Bahamas last Thursday. The Government is known to be examining how it might revoke his certificate of naturalisation, although this process is at an early stage. Information is awaited from the Bahamas
Two other men - David Pinkerton, a managing director of an AIG subsidiary, and Frederic Bourke Jr, of Greenwich, Connecticut were also indicted last week and have pleaded not guilty.
