The extradition of “Mr Bitcoin”, Russian citizen Alexander Vinnik, has been suspended pending a review of a new appeal on January 10, the Supreme Administrative Court of Greece has ruled.
Mr Vinnik is sought by the US, France and Russia on money laundering charges, and last week Greece’s minister of justice, Konstantinos Tsiaras had signed the order to extradition last week, sending him first to France and then to the US.
AMNA reported that a decision set for 24 March under the jurisdiction of the Council of State’s (CoS) fourth section was reversed by Cos president Ekaterini Sakellaropoulou. Instead, the case will be brought forward to be heard at plenary level on 10 January.
READ MORE: Greece to extradite bitcoin mastermind Alexander Vinnik to France, upsetting Russia
According to greekreporter.com, Mr Vinnik was arrested in northern Greece in July 2017 after France, the US and Russia issued warrants for his arrest over his role in an e-currency platform that he set up and through which he is accused of laundering money.
Mr Vinnik, who has been on two hunger strikes since his arrest, is contesting the minister’s decision through his lawyer, Zoi Konstantopoulou.
He has said that he wanted to be extradited to Russia. Following the latest decision, he has embarked on a third hunger strike and is being held under guard in Athens suffering from the effects of his previous hunger strikes.
On Monday, Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov protested that the decision to authorise the extradition of Mr Vinnik to the US via France was “sly” and “unacceptable”.
Mr Lavrov said: “(Greece) made somewhat of a sly decision because it had received three requests for extradition from the US, France and Russia. Despite the fact that we spoke about (this) with Greek Foreign Minister (Nikos Dendias), who said he would consider our argumentation, Greek authorities made the decision to authorise the extradition and did not inform us.”
“We think this approach to be unacceptable by our Greek partners, who promised to carefully consider all of the information (Russia) presented them with (on the case). We are in close contact with (the Greek authorities) and insist that they take further measures to consider our request (to extradite Vinnik to Russia),” Mr Lavrov added.
