A Polish court on Friday ruled against handing over a Ukrainian suspect wanted by Germany in connection with the 2022 Nord Stream gas pipeline explosions, a decision that will please the government in Warsaw which had opposed his transfer.
Although Warsaw had said the decision over whether "Volodymyr Z." should be transferred to Germany was one for the courts alone, Prime Minister Donald Tusk said earlier this month that handing Volodymyr Z. over was not in Poland's interest.
Tusk said the problem was not that the pipelines were blown up in September 2022, but that they were built at all.
The explosions largely severed Russian gas supplies to Europe, marking a major escalation in the Ukraine conflict and further tightening energy supplies.
The pipelines had been a source of tension between Warsaw and Berlin as far back as the 2000s, when they were still in the planning stage. Poland argued they compromised regional security by making Europe overly dependent on Russian energy while handing billions of euros to Moscow.
Germany’s government has declined to comment on Tusk’s remarks or the tensions surrounding the case, while a Polish government spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.
A German diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the issue, said that Tusk’s comments could harm cooperation between two of Kyiv’s key allies.
However, another German diplomat said Berlin was unlikely to pick a fight with Warsaw over the case and that the investigation would continue regardless of the outcome.
Germany’s top prosecutor’s office said Volodymyr Z. was one of a group suspected of renting a sailing yacht and planting explosives on the pipelines near the Danish island of Bornholm.
He faces allegations of conspiring to commit an explosives attack and of “anti-constitutional sabotage.”
His Polish lawyer denies the accusations, saying Volodymyr Z. has done nothing wrong. He also questioned whether a case concerning the destruction of Russian property by a Ukrainian, at a time when the countries are at war, should be treated as a criminal matter.
“I’m personally pleased that this case is generating strong public sentiment, including statements from politicians,” Tymoteusz Paprocki said on Thursday.
Warsaw regional prosecutors’ spokesperson Piotr Skiba said that, on legal grounds, it would be difficult not to hand the Ukrainian over to Germany.
“It’s very difficult to find any grounds on which we couldn’t transfer him to the Germans,” he said, cautioning that the final decision rests with the Warsaw court.
A second Ukrainian suspect, "Serhii K.", won a reprieve on Wednesday when Italy’s top court upheld an appeal against his transfer on procedural grounds. That case will have to go before court again.
In Poland, courts can refuse to hand over suspects wanted under European arrest warrants if doing so would violate their human rights or if criminal proceedings for the same offence are already underway in Poland. Warsaw has launched its own investigation into the Nord Stream bombings, but Volodymyr Z. is a witness, not a suspect.
(Reporting by Marek Strzelecki, Anna Koper, and Barbara Erling in Warsaw; Sarah Marsh and Andreas Rinke in Berlin; Emilio Parodi in Milan; Writing by Alan Charlish; Editing by Alexander Smith)