Ukrainian businessman Dmytro Firtash has unexpectedly become an adviser to the Permanent Mission of Belarus to international organizations in Vienna and is now trying to obtain diplomatic immunity on this basis.
Source. This was reported by DW.
Firtash got a job in one of the international agencies within the UN structure – UNIDO.
On the basis of this status, Firtash demands to stop the procedure of his extradition to the United States and refers to diplomatic immunity.
In 2021, his lawyers submitted to the court a legal expertise prepared by a Western European professor of international law to prove that Firtash, as an advisor to UNIDO, has the status of a diplomat, including diplomatic immunity.
If the dispute is resolved in the businessman's favor, he will be able to avoid extradition to the United States, where he is accused of corruption and money laundering.
Currently, the Vienna Higher Land Court has ordered to reopen Firtash's case. In its ruling of June 14, the court of appeal ordered the court of first instance to take into account the businessman's work for the UN agencies and determine whether he falls under the status of a diplomat.
According to the Austrian Ministry of Justice, Firtash is not properly accredited with UNIDO and does not have a corresponding accreditation card from the Austrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Accordingly, the government in Vienna does not consider him to be a person entitled to diplomatic privileges, including legal immunity.
DW notes that the courts of previous instances took into account the message of the Austrian Ministry of Justice and did not recognize Firtash's diplomatic immunity.
Now, the Vienna Higher Land Court has ordered the court of first instance to make an independent legal assessment, regardless of the position of the Austrian Ministry of Justice, on whether to recognize the businessman's diplomatic immunity. If the court does recognize him as a diplomat, the extradition proceedings will be suspended while the diplomatic mandate is in effect.
UNIDO is one of the little-known international agencies within the UN structure that is supposed to promote the industrialization of post-colonial third world countries.