By Anna Koper
WARSAW, March 18 (Reuters) – A Warsaw court decided on Wednesday that Russian archaeologist Alexander Butiagin should be extradited to Ukraine, where he is accused of involvement in unauthorised excavation and plundering historical artefacts in Crimea, his lawyer said.
Poland’s decision to arrest the archaeologist at Ukraine’s request in December provoked a furious reaction from Russia, with the Kremlin accusing Poland of “legal tyranny.” In January, Russia summoned the Polish ambassador to demand his release.
“Today the judge decided that the extradition is legally admissible,” lawyer Adam Domanski told reporters. He said Butiagin would appeal.
Russia’s Foreign Ministry said the decision had no legal basis and that Moscow would work for Butiagin’s swift return to Russia.
Butiagin, who allowed his family name to be published, beyond Poland’s usual privacy laws, was an employee of the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, the Russian Foreign Ministry said in December.
The Prosecutor’s Office of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, now located in the Ukrainian city of Kherson following Russia’s annexation of the peninsula from Ukraine, has said Butiagin’s team conducted unauthorised excavations in the ancient city of Myrmekion in the Kerch area, causing damage of over 200 million hryvnias ($4.55 million).
Ukraine also says the team seized 30 gold coins, of which 26 were inscribed with the name of Alexander the Great. Four were minted during the reign of his brother Philip III Arrhidaeus.
Moscow says the charges against Butiagin are “absurd” as in its view Crimea is Russian territory, while it has called Warsaw’s decision to detain the archaeologist politically motivated.
($1 = 43.3160 hryvnias)
(Reporting by Anna Koper, Pawel Florkiewicz, Karol Badohal and Anna Wlodarczak-Semczuk; Editing by Sharon Singleton, Alison Williams, Rod Nickel)
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