France's highest appeals court paved the way on Wednesday for the extradition to either Russia or Ukraine of jailed Kazakh tycoon Mukhtar Ablyazov, accused of embezzling up to $6 billion from his former bank BTA, reports Reuters.
Ablyazov has denied accusations that he embezzled billions from BTA, the bank in which he held a majority stake and which was eventually seized by Kazakh authorities and declared insolvent in 2009. Prosecutors said he made loans to front companies he controlled which were never paid back.
The decision by the Cour de Cassation rejected an appeal by Ablyazov and upheld a ruling by a lower court that approved the extradition of the former Kazakh government minister, arrested near the Riviera resort of Cannes in 2013.
France does not have an extradition treaty with Kazakhstan, which wants to put Ablyazov on trial, but it does with Russia and Ukraine.
Ablyazov's lawyers have argued that if he is extradited to either of those countries, he could be sent on to Kazakhstan, where Ablyazov says he is being pursued for political reasons for being an opponent of President Nursultan Nazarbayev.
Read more of this report from Reuters.
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