Italian police have arrested a Ukrainian citizen on suspicion of involvement in the explosions on the Nord Stream gas pipelines in 2022, the Spiegel reports.
According to the investigation, the Ukrainian was allegedly part of the group that organized the sabotage and was one of the coordinators. According to German investigators, the participants used a sailing yacht rented through intermediaries from a German company under forged documents to transport them to the site of the explosion.
The man is accused of participating in an explosion using explosives, unconstitutional sabotage, and destruction of infrastructure. He may be extradited to Germany in the near future.
Ukrainian Serhiy Kuznetsov said in court that was in his homeland on the day of the incident. About this reported italian media outlet ANSA and confirmed by Mykola Katerynchuk, attorney and chairman of Katerynchuk, Moor & Partners law firm in the comments to Suspilne.
According to the lawyer, he provides legal assistance to those who are being accused of undermining the “streams”; the lawyer advised the family of the arrested Kuznetsov – during the trial on the preventive measure, he received a free lawyer from Italy, which he refused.
Katerynchuk noted that at the trial, the detained Ukrainian refused extradition to Germany: Germany requested it, and the Italian prosecutor’s office granted the request. The trial in this regard is scheduled for September 3.
Kuznetsov, along with his wife and minor children, arrived in Italy on August 13 for a vacation, and on August 20, the man was arrested (German prosecutors claimed that this happened on the 21st of) and his children and wife were also taken away by the police, the lawyer said.
He claims that the local police did not provide an interpreter for his wife, demanded that she sign documents in Italian and threatened to arrest her if she refused.
