Russian businessman close to Vladimir Putin escapes arrest in Milan and sparks political storm in Italy

Escape of a Russian businessman Artem Usswhile he was under house arrest in Italy pending extradition to the United States, sparked a political storm that will force Justice Minister Carlo Nordio to go to Parliament tomorrow to give urgent explanations.

Uss, 40 years old, son of the governor of the Krasnoyarsk Territory, politician from the party of the President of Russia, Vladimir Putinfled the country a day after the Milan Court of Appeal (North) gave the go-ahead for his extradition from the US, which accuses him of illegally exporting military technology to Russia, among other crimes.

Nordio, who has the clear support of Georgia Prime Minister Meloni, accuses the three Milan judges who granted him house arrest and brought disciplinary proceedings against them of “gross and inexcusable negligence,” Corriere reported Wednesday. sulfur” and “Republic”.

The Minister believes that the judges decided to send him to his home in Basiglio, not far from Milanwith an electronic bracelet “without regard” to the circumstances that were included in the conclusion of the prosecutor’s office of Milan, as opposed to house arrest, and in particular the “high and specific risk of flight”.

The judges, for their part, argue that the ministry could have called for pre-trial detention and that they could not enforce ex officio aggravated house arrest except in the case of an offence, but nothing was found prior to the escape.

“There are anomalies, the main of which is the decision of the Court of Appeal to grant house arrest. Nordio was right to initiate a disciplinary action,” Meloni said in support of her minister, when asked about it last Saturday during an official visit to Ethiopia.

The Minister will appear tomorrow in the Chamber of Deputies at the request of the opposition, which has stressed the risk of a diplomatic incident with USA and that he would demand an explanation from Nordio about the note from the Ministry of Justice of this country, in which Uss was asked to be returned to prison pending his extradition, and which, according to the judges in Milan, they never received.

Escape with fake documents from Italy

According to the first reconstructions, the Russian businessman managed to get out of Italy On March 22, by car, with forged documents and a change of vehicles, across the Trieste (northeast) border to enter Slovenia and further to Serbia, from where he returned to Russia, possibly by plane.

He electronic bracelet that he was dressed after leaving prison and that he was not found, warned him of his departure, but when the police arrived, it was already too late.

At a hearing in the Milan Court of Appeal, the lawyers for the Russian businessman explained that his arrest was made for the purpose of a “prisoner exchange”, because USA he was interested in securing the release of businessman Paul Whelan, who had been sentenced to 16 years in Moscow.

And on October 21, Putin’s press secretary Dmitry Peskov assured that “Russian diplomacy will do everything possible to protect the interests of Uss.”

us, who was arrested on 17 October at Milan’s Malpensa airport as he flew to Turkey and remained in prison until 2 December, revealed in early April that he was “forced to flee” because he did not trust Italian justice. (EFE)