"The decision has been made to extradite Vinnik to Russia. During the court hearing, a motion was filed to replace detention in custody with house arrest. The motion has not yet been granted. The judge did not say yes or no. She said she would make a decision when issuing the text of the ruling on extradition," the lawyer said.
READ MORE: Greek Court Tried to Speed Up Extradition of Russia's Vinnik to France — Lawyer
Vinnik was detained in Greece on July 25, 2017, at the request of US authorities charging him with a number of offenses. The charges included laundering $4 billion through bitcoin cryptocurrency exchange BTC-E, which Vinnik allegedly headed, hacking Japanese exchange Mt.Gox, which led to its bankruptcy and facilitating drug trafficking. Vinnik faces up to 55 years in prison in the United States if convicted.
In October, two different panels in Greece adopted two mutually exclusive decisions of the same judicial force, one on the extradition of Vinnik to Russia and the other on his extradition to the United States. In December, the Supreme Court of Greece upheld the decision to extradite the Russian citizen to the United States.
In June, France put Vinnik on the wanted list over embezzling of money on its territory and requested his extradition from Greece. On July 13, a Greek court ruled to satisfy France's request to extradite Vinnik. Musatov said then that France's request was aimed to further extradite Vinnik to the United States, adding that he would appeal that ruling.
