Italian court approves extradition of Ukrainian citizen suspected of involvement in Nord Stream gas pipeline explosions
A court in the Italian city of Bologna has ruled to extradite Ukrainian citizen Serhiy Kuznetsov, who is suspected of involvement in the explosions on the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 gas pipelines. At the same time, Kuznetsov’s lawyer said that he intends to appeal this decision. This is reported by Tagesschau.
“According to the defendant’s lawyer, the case may also be retried. After the Bologna court’s decision, lawyer Nicola Canestrini announced that he would file an appeal with the Court of Cassation in Rome. The latter had previously returned the case to the Bologna court, the report said.
This decision opens the possibility for German prosecutors to directly question the suspect in the sabotage case that led to the destruction of a key Russian gas supply route to Europe.
Sergey Kuznetsov was arrested on August 21 on the basis of a European warrant issued by the Federal Court of Germany. He was detained at a country hotel in San Clemente near the Italian city of Rimini, where he had just registered. After his arrest, Kuznetsov was held in a detention center in the resort town of Riccione.
On September 16, an Italian court ruled to extradite him to Germany, but his lawyer immediately filed an appeal. During the hearing, the Ukrainian stated that he was in Ukraine on the day of the explosions. On October 16, the Italian Court of Cassation overturned the Court of Appeal’s extradition decision, and the case was remanded for retrial.
The Nord Stream 1 gas pipeline, a two-pipe pipeline running across the Baltic Sea from Russia to Germany, was commissioned in 2011–2012 and had a capacity of over 55 billion cubic meters of gas per year. Its “twin”, “Nord Stream 2”, was supposed to transport similar volumes of fuel, but was never put into operation due to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022.
In September of the same year, two strands of “Nord Stream 1” and one strand of “Nord Stream 2” were depressurized due to a gas pipeline explosion near the Danish island of Bornholm. A criminal case has been opened in Russia under the article on international terrorism into the explosions. The investigation is also ongoing in Germany, while Sweden officially closed it in February 2024.
