The wealthy Russian businessman Andreï Isaev, 63, should not be extradited, the Aix-en-Provence Court of Appeal having given an unfavorable opinion on Wednesday at the request of the judicial authorities of Saint Petersburg in January 2021 .
The investigating chamber refuses your surrender. Barring a possible appeal, the procedure ends today. You will not be extradited to the Russian Federation, Mr. Isaev explained to the court, presenting the statement of the decision which also orders the lifting of his judicial control.
The general prosecutor’s office having itself requested this unfavorable opinion, an appeal on its part seems unlikely.
Me Emmanuel Marsigny, defender of Mr. Isaev, was delighted with this decision. According to him, his client’s extradition request was based on an instrumentalization of the Russian judicial procedure.
An arrest warrant was issued by Russia in April 2020, as part of a very large-scale fraud procedure against the Baltic Bank, one of the largest Russian banking institutions, of which Mr. Isaev was a shareholder. height of nearly 50%.
Mr. Isaev was accused of having appropriated land in Saint-Petersburg at a low price, through financial movements between companies.
It was during a banal speeding near Aix-en-Provence, in December 2020, driving a Bentley with Monaco registration, that Mr. Isaev was arrested and placed under judicial supervision pending this decision.
At the hearing, on June 15, the Advocate General Denis Vanbremeersch had requested an unfavorable opinion, the acts of fraud denounced by Russia being, according to him, prescribed, in the light of the French code of criminal procedure.
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The judicial authorities of Saint Petersburg had opened an investigation on October 24, 2016, while the last criminal act mentioned dated September 21, 2013, i.e. a period exceeding the limitation period of three years.
For the lawyers of the former banker, the judicial machine had been launched against Mr. Isaev because of his resistance to a financial raid by the Alfa Bank group to take control of the Baltic Bank.
Mr. Isaev, an oncologist who made his fortune by creating one of the first private clinics in Russia, estimates that he has lost assets representing 300 million euros.