06.05.2015 13:23 h

Former Portsmouth FC owner loses extradition case

The former owner of English football club Portsmouth on Wednesday lost a High Court bid to avoid extradition to Lithuania, where he faces £400 million ($608 million, 540 million euros) fraud charges.

Russian Vladimir Antonov, 39, and his Lithuanian business partner, 57-year-old Raimondas Baranauskas, are accused of stripping assets and funds from a leading Lithuanian bank, Snoras, when it was nationalised in 2011.

The pair claimed they were being used as "scapegoats" and said the extradition request was "politically motivated", but two judges at London's High Court dismissed their challenge.

"There is simply no evidence, direct or indirect, from which it can be established, directly or by inference, that there was a causal link between the issue of the EAW (European Arrest Warrants) to prosecute Vladimir Antonov and his Russian nationality," the judges said.

The judges, Richard Aikens and Peregrine Simon, rejected the claim that Antonov was being prosecuted because of his Russian nationality and political opinions.

Antonov was the chairman of Snoras's board of observers and Baranauskas was chief executive and chairman of the board until the bank was nationalised by the Lithuanian government in November 2011.

They are accused of stripping 470 million euros and $10 million of assets and funds from Snoras, as well as submitting false documents to the Lithuanian central bank in a bid to cover their tracks.

Antonov and Baranauskas claimed that they had been targeted by the Lithuanian government, which had been criticised by a newspaper owned by the bank.

But the High Court decided that their case was "wholly without merit" and upheld an extradition ruling made in January last year.

Antonov purchased Portsmouth, then in the second-tier Championship, in June 2011.

But he stepped down the following November when his company, Convers Sports Initiatives, went into administration following his arrest over the fraud allegations.

Portsmouth -- FA Cup winners in 2008 -- subsequently went into administration in February 2012, prompting a 10-point deduction that contributed to their relegation.

They were relegated again in 2013 and currently play in England's fourth division.