Extradition from the Bahamas to the United States (or the Czech Republic)—Viktor Kozeny

As extradition hearings for Viktor Kozeny, who we mentioned last Monday, are set to begin in the Bahamas. The Czech Republic is also seeking the extradition of Mr. Kozeny, who is suspected “of 11.5 billion crowns [roughly US$475 million]^[1] worth of embezzlements.”^[2] According to Czech authorities, “the Czech Republic has not signed an agreement on legal assistance with the Bahamas, therefore its efforts in this respect have been unsuccessful so far.”^[3] It may be true that the Czech Republic and the Bahamas have not signed a bilateral Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty [hereinafter MLAT] in Criminal Matters, such as the MLAT that exists between the Bahamas and the United States, but, according to the Bahamas Ministry of Foreign Affairs [hereinafter MFA], there is certainly an extradition treaty between the Czech Republic and the Bahamas listed on the MFA website.^[4] However, according to some Prague news sources, “the Justice Ministry has tried to invoke a 1925 treaty between Czechoslovakia and the United Kingdom that included British colonies to take back Kozeny from his posh home in the Bahamas.”^[5] In short, therefore, there is quite a bit of dispute about whether the Czech-Bahamas extradition treaty is valid.^[6] The Czech Republic’s extradition request was filed in April, while the request from the United States was filed in October.^[7]

We have previously discussed the procedures available to a country dealing with multiple extradition requests when we discussed Yevgeny Adamov at the end of August. The procedure for dealing with multiple extradition requests is governed by the bilateral international extradition treaty between the two countries. According to the US-Bahamas treaty, when the requested state (the Bahamas) receives extradition requests from the other contracting state (the US) and from any other state or states “for the extradition of the same person, either for the same offense or for different offenses, the executive authority” of the requested state “shall determine to which [s]tate it will surrender the person.”^[8] The relevant factors which the requested state will take into consideration include, but are not limited to: the state in which the offense was committed; the gravity of the offenses, if the states are seeking the person for different offenses; the nationality of the offender; the possibility of re-extradition between the requesting states; and the chronological order in which the requests were received from the requesting states.^[9] The text of the Czech-UK/Bahamas treaty is exceedingly difficult to find online. A look at treaties from the early 20th century that were negotiated by the United States with countries such as Bulgaria, Albania, Greece, Latvia, Venezuela, and even Czechoslovakia, suggests that the international norm at that time for multiple requests was simply that the request which was received first was the country to which the suspect would be sent.

In other developments concerning Mr. Kozeny, it has also come to light that Mr. Kozeny has Venezuelan, and possibly Brazilian, citizenship to go with his Irish citizenship.^[10] He also possessed eight passports, all of which were invalid.^[11]

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[1] Currency Converter: Czech Koruna to U.S. Dollar Exchange Rates, Yahoo!, Dec. 13, 2005.
[2] Court to Set Start of Kozeny’s Extradition Procedure on Tuesday, Prague Daily Monitor, Dec. 12, 2005 [hereinafter PDM].
[3] Id.
[4] See Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Bilateral Register at 6, May 2004. (PDF) The extradition treaty signed in 1924 between the United Kingdom and Czechoslovakia (continued in force for the Bahamas in 1973) purportedly applies to the Bahamas as well as both the Czech Republic and Slovakia.
[5] Scott Domer, On the Run from Czech Authorities, The Prague Post, Nov. 23, 2005 (last visited Dec. 13, 2005). Senior Principle Douglas McNabb is quoted in this article, but he takes issue with the attribution of “until they have their pound of flesh.” This is not an accurate representation of Mr. McNabb’s opinion.
[6] See, e.g., Kozeny Charged with Bribery in US, Prague Daily Monitor (via Bahamas Business News), Oct. 7, 2005; Bahamas Establishes Diplomatic Relations with Czech Republic, Prague Daily Monitor (via Bahamas Business News), Jun. 8, 2005; Jan Stojaspal, Chasing the Prodigal Son, Time (Europe), Oct. 12, 2003.
[7] Id.
[8] Extradition Treaty, Mar. 9, 1990, U.S.-Bahamas, art. 13, para. 1, S. Treaty Doc. No. 102-17 (1994).
[9] Id. art. 13, para. 1, sects. (a)-(e).
[10] PDM, supra note 1.
[11] Id.