Top Italian court approves handover of Ukrainian Nord Stream suspect to Germany

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MILAN (Reuters) -Italy’s top court has approved the handover to Germany of a Ukrainian man suspected of coordinating the 2022 sabotage of the Nord Stream gas pipeline, his lawyer Nicola Canestrini said on Wednesday.

The suspect, identified only as Serhii K. under German privacy laws, has been fighting attempts to transfer him to Germany since he was detained on a European arrest warrant in the Italian town of Rimini in August.

The decision by the Court of Cassation in Rome means the suspect will be transferred to the German authorities in the next few days.

“However great the disappointment, I remain confident in an acquittal after the full trial in Germany. Justice is a tortuous path, the result of continuous work and not … a miracle that fulfils itself,” Canestrini said in a statement.

Described by both Moscow and the West as an act of sabotage, the mysterious explosions in the Baltic Sea three years ago largely severed Russian gas transit to Europe, squeezing energy supplies on the continent. 

Serhii K., a former officer in the Ukrainian military, denies any role in the attacks.

German prosecutors allege he was part of a group of people who planted devices on the pipelines near the Danish island of Bornholm in the Baltic.

He faces charges of collusion to cause an explosion, anti-constitutional sabotage and destruction of important structures.

He has been held in a high security jail in Italy and at one point staged a hunger strike to protest against prison conditions and what his lawyer said was a failure to provide a suitable diet.

Last month a court in Poland ruled against handing over another Ukrainian suspect wanted by Germany in connection with the explosions and ordered his immediate release from detention.

(Reporting by Emilio Parodi and Marco Roberti, writing by Keith Weir and Gianluca Semeraro,; editing by Mark Heinrich and Keith Weir)