Israeli mining magnate Beny Steinmetz held in Greece on Romanian arrest warrant
Businessman detained hours after arriving on private aircraft at Athens International Airport; Romania has convicted him in absentia for real estate fraud
French-Israeli diamond mining magnate Beny Steinmetz was detained in Athens on an arrest warrant issued by Romania, police and legal sources said on Monday.
The 68-year-old was detained on Sunday, hours after arriving on a private aircraft at Athens International Airport, police sources said.
A European arrest warrant was issued against him on behalf of Romania on accusations related to being part of a criminal organization, a police official said on condition of anonymity.
Steinmetz was expected to appear before a prosecutor later Monday.
Romania convicted Steinmetz in absentia for real estate fraud and in December 2020 sentenced him to five years in prison. An initial Interpol “red notice” to detain Steinmetz was ordered, but later canceled due to concerns that the trial against Steinmetz was “politically motivated,” his spokesman said last year when the businessman was similarly detained in Cyprus, but then released on bail.
The European arrest warrant remains valid but was rejected by authorities in Italy and Greece “in view of the violation of his right to a fair trial — as well as the real risk of him being subjected to discriminatory, inhumane, and humiliating treatment if he is extradited,” the spokesperson stated at the time.
Steinmetz has appealed his conviction at the European Court of Human Rights.
Steinmetz’s lawyer said the decision to arrest him stemmed from “a blatant abuse of procedure by the Romanian authorities.”
“It is unprecedented for the rule of law in Greece, or any other respected country, for such an administrative act to overturn a decision of the Greek judiciary, which had definitively and irrevocably ruled against his extradition to Romania, recognizing his right to travel freely,” the lawyer, Stavros Togias, said in a press release.
The Romanian affair concerns a real estate project Steinmetz was involved in during 2006-2008.
After the fall of the communist regime in Romania in 1989, the government allowed the restoration of private land to those who had lost it in the 1940s when the communists took over. Steinmetz was a partner and adviser to a body that held shares in a company that purchased the rights to land owned by a Romanian royal prince. That body was eventually accused of fraud.
Aside from the Romanian conviction, in 2021 Steinmetz was convicted of bribery in another corruption trial linked to mining rights in Guinea and was sentenced to three years, of which half were to be served in prison.
An appeal against that conviction was rejected last year. Steinmetz plans a further appeal against the conviction at the country’s highest court.
Steinmetz, who lives in Israel, will not serve any prison time until the appeals process has been exhausted.
Regarding the Swiss case, Steinmetz’s lawyers said last month they had asked for the sentence to be scrapped, pointing to previously unpublished documents indicating serious breaches by the prosecution.
The documents drawn from Israeli investigations included email exchanges with Swiss authorities, and showed illegal actions by Geneva prosecutor Claudio Mascotto, who was initially in charge of the investigation, they said.
