VIENNA (Reuters) – Authorities in Austria are not planning to arrest Rene Benko in response to an Italian judge’s order that the Austrian property tycoon be brought into custody, a spokesman for public prosecutors in Innsbruck said on Wednesday.
The judge ordered the arrest of Benko and eight others as part of an investigation into alleged corruption of politicians in the Trentino Alto-Adige region in northern Italy, sources with direct knowledge of the matter told Reuters.
Without naming Benko, Trento’s public prosecutors said that the business group under suspicion allegedly controlled local politicians to promote its construction activities in the region known for the Dolomite mountains and its popular ski resorts.
Benko’s lawyer Norbert Wess said the Italian order would not be executed against his client, which Hansjoerg Mayr of the Innsbruck prosecutor’s office confirmed.
“This European arrest warrant will not be carried out,” Mayr said. “The legal situation in Austria is that a European arrest warrant in Austria against an Austrian cannot be executed if the proceedings for which the European arrest warrant was issued are also subject to the Austrian criminal justice system.”
Wess, the lawyer, said his client believed the charges could be refuted and that “90 percent” of what is under investigation in Italy had no link to Benko or his property firm Signa.
Italy’s Carabinieri and Guardia di Finanza finance police carried out more than 100 searches in four Italian regions on Tuesday, the Trento prosecutors said. A total of 77 people are under investigation, they said.
The charges include criminal conspiracy, corruption, bid-rigging, illegal financing of political parties, fraud, disclosure of secrets and false invoices.
(Reporting by Alexandra Schwarz-Goerlich,; Writing by Dave Graham; Editing by John Revill)
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