Ablyazov extradition battle to starts again

    A French court will hear arguments Thursday on whether to extradite Mukhtar Ablyazov, a once-powerful Kazakh banker turned fugitive who is sought on fraud charges by Ukraine, Russia and Kazakhstan.
    Ablyazov's case is as messy as it is vast, and sorting out what to do with him has occupied lawyers and judges in five countries. He was arrested last year at a seaside villa in the south of France, and in January a court in Aix-en-Provence approved his extradition to Ukraine or Russia. That ruling was overturned by France's top appeals court, and the case is now being reheard in Lyon.
    But much has changed since the first ruling: Ukraine's government was swept out and replaced, and Russia has seized part of Ukraine. The European Union, backed by France, has imposed sanctions on Russia, and France has threatened to suspend delivery of a warship it had agreed to provide Russia before the conflict.
    Meantime, Kazakhstan and the bank Mr. Ablyazov once ran are quietly working to get him returned to the UK, where courts have not looked favorably upon him. He lived in London before fleeing on the eve of a prison sentence and the bank has won billions in judgments against him in civil courts there.
    For now, though, Mr. Ablyazov is in a French prison. His lawyers argue that Mr. Ablyazov faces retaliation fr om Kazakhstan for co-founding a political party that challenged Nursultan Nazarbayev, the country's authoritarian president, and say he shouldn't be extradited.
    Human-rights groups have urged France not to do so, out of concern that he could be eventually sent to Kazakhstan and mistreated. Mr. Ablyazov was given refugee status in the UK in 2011, and France hasn't acted on Kazakhstan's request for extradition.
    Ablyazov was chairman of Kazakhstan's BTA Bank, once a frontier-market star. In 2009, the bank was nationalized, and Ablyazov fled to London, saying he feared Mr. Nazarbayev. BTA sued him in English courts, alleging that he looted the bank for billions by squirreling away its money in shell companies he controlled. He denies any misappropriation.
    Still, the bank won massive fraud judgments against him. One English judge determined that Mr. Ablyazov lied and misled the court, and, just before he was sentenced to 22 months in prison for contempt, Mr. Ablyazov fled. He was on the lam for nearly a year and a half before being picked up in France.
    The first French court to hear the case agreed in January to extradite Mr. Ablyazov to Ukraine or Russia, but his lawyers say the turmoil since then has created new reasons he shouldn't be extradited.They have challenged in French and Ukrainian courts whether the Ukrainian investigation of his alleged fraud was proper, and even whether the lawyers representing Ukraine in France are authorized to do so. (A French court has accepted that they are.)
    When the case was first heard in France, "The world was in a bit of a lull about Russia, and Ukraine wasn't even on the map then," said Peter Sahlas, a lawyer for the Ablyazov family.
    Roman Marchenko, an outside lawyer for the Ukrainian prosecutor's office seeking Mr. Ablyazov, said "nothing has been changed" regarding the extradition. "The present government continues to support the prosecution of Mr. Ablyazov in Ukraine and his extradition," he said.
    Sahlas also argues that Kazakhstan is pulling strings behind the scenes to aid the Ukrainian and Russian extradition requests,