A Zagreb court has approved the extradition to Germany of a Ukrainian man wanted over the Sept. 26, 2022, undersea explosions that damaged the Nord Stream gas pipelines, state broadcaster HRT reported Thursday.
Defense to Appeal: HRT quoted the suspect's lawyer, Ljubo Pavaskovic, saying the defense will appeal the Sept. 18 ruling. It was not immediately clear when German authorities might take custody of the man.
The suspect was arrested in August in the northern Croatian town of Pula on the basis of a European arrest warrant. German prosecutors allege he was a "trained scuba diver" who, together with others, planted explosives on the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 pipelines in the Baltic Sea close to the Danish island of Bornholm.
The blasts on Sept. 26, 2022, damaged both pipelines, which had been built to carry Russian natural gas to Germany beneath the Baltic Sea. The sabotage intensified tensions as Europe moved to reduce reliance on Russian energy following Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
The German prosecutor's office has identified the Croatian-held suspect as Vladimir Z. The Associated Press reported this is the same man who was arrested in Poland last year but later released after a Polish court refused a German extradition request; Polish authorities had identified him as Volodymyr Zhuravlov.
Related Cases: In July, German federal prosecutors filed charges against a former Ukrainian army officer in connection with the same explosions. Separately, authorities detained Serhii K. in Italy in August after a raid on a bungalow where he and his family were staying; he was later extradited to Germany in November.
Prosecutors say the suspects used a yacht rented from a German company, employing forged identification and intermediaries, and departed from the German port of Rostock.
The explosions ruptured Nord Stream 1, which had been a primary route for Russian gas to Germany until Moscow halted deliveries in August 2022, and also damaged Nord Stream 2, a pipeline that never entered service after Germany suspended its certification process shortly before the invasion.
