By Marek Strzelecki and Anna Koper
WARSAW (Reuters) -A Polish court on Friday ruled against handing over a Ukrainian suspect wanted by Germany in connection with the 2022 Nord Stream gas pipeline explosions, a decision that will please the government in Warsaw which had opposed his transfer.
Although Warsaw had said the decision over whether Volodymyr Z. should be transferred to Germany was one for the courts alone, Prime Minister Donald Tusk said earlier this month that handing Volodymyr Z. over was not in Poland’s interest.
Tusk said the problem was not that the undersea pipelines, which run from Russia to Germany, were blown up in September 2022, but that they were built at all.
The explosions largely severed Russian gas supplies to Europe, marking a major escalation in the Ukraine conflict and squeezing energy supplies.
Germany’s top prosecutors’ office says Volodymyr Z. was one of a group suspected of renting a sailing yacht and planting explosives on the pipelines near the Danish island of Bornholm.
He faces allegations of conspiring to commit an explosives attack and of “anti-constitutional sabotage”.
His Polish lawyer rejects the accusations and says Volodymyr Z. has done nothing wrong. He has also questioned whether a case concerning the destruction of Russian property by a Ukrainian at a time when the countries are at war is a criminal matter.
(Reporting by Marek Strzelecki, Anna Koper and Barbara Erling in Warsaw, Sarah Marsh and Andreas Rinke in Berlin, Emilio Parodi in Milan, writing by Alan Charlish, editing by Alexander Smith, Susan Fenton)
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