April 23 (SeeNews) - Westminster Magistrates Court in London decided on Monday to extradite the owner of Croatia's ailing concern Agrokor, Ivica Todoric, to his home country, Croatian media reported.
Todoric, his two sons, and 12 other business associates are under investigation in Croatia for suspected wrongdoing at Agrokor that led the country's largest privately-held concern to the brink of collapse in 2017. A Zagreb county court ordered that Todoric be put in pre-trial detention in October.
A judge of the London court ruled on Monday that Todoric is to be handed over to Croatia, Hina news agency reported.
Todoric has seven days to appeal the ruling, which he is likely to do, Hina added.
The owner of Agrokor was detained in London in November on a European arrest warrant and was released on bail by the court just hours after. He was stripped of his passport and was required to wear an electronic tag and report to a police station three times a week.
Right after leaving the court house in November, Todoric wrote in a blog post that he was in London because his human rights had been seriously violated in Croatia.
"I will not allow a political decree to declare me guilty without a trial, because my words obviously affect those who confiscated my property," Todoric said at the time.
Westminster Magistrates Court judge Emma Arbuthnot is reported by Hina to have said in her ruling that the claim that the proceedings were politically motivated was a very weak argument.
The Agrokor group employs some 60,000 people throughout the states of the former Yugoslavia.
In April last year, the Croatian government stepped in to prevent the collapse of indebted Agrokor by appointing a receiver under a special law governing the management of companies of systemic importance for the country's economy. Todoric was stripped of his managerial rights under the law popularly known as Lex Agrokor but remains owner of the concern.