TIRANA, Nov. 3 – Francesco Becchetti, a UK-based Italian businessman and owner of several Albanian companies, including the Agon Channel television station, is to face an extradition hearing in the UK on charges he faces in Albania.
He has been asked by British authorities to go to Albania voluntarily before Dec. 7 or he could be forcefully extradited.
Becchetti faced this week London’s Westminster Magistrate Court, where he was formally notified by the British authorities of their intention to act on an international warrant issued by Albania. He has been released on bail until then, according to several media reports.
Becchetti has been wanted by the Albanian authorities since June when Albanian prosecutors issued arrest warrants for the Italian businessman, his mother, and two associates, accusing them of fraud-related offenses and money laundering over a failed hydroelectric scheme that allegedly cost the government tens of millions of euros in grants and unpaid taxes.
Prosecutors also ordered the seizure of assets in Albania of the 48-year-old businessman, whose companies included a private television station, Agon Channel, which has now ceased operating after the power company shut off its electricity due to nonpayment of bills.
Becchetti began investments in Albania in the 1990s following the fall of communism, but a spokesman for the prosecutor’s office said he no longer lives in the country.
The investigation into his activities was launched over a major hydroelectric plant that was never built.
The charges against him carry a maximum prison sentence of 15 years.
Becchetti is also the owner of the English football club Leyton Orient and has a home in a wealthy London neighborhood, according to media reports.
Following the issuance of the arrest warrant, Becchetti told an Italian online media in an interview that he plans to sue Albania in an international arbitration court.
“For those who think they can intimidate me, they will get the opposite results,” he told Adn Kronos news agency in June.
Becchetti’s Agon Channel had been highly critical of the government and had portrayed the shutting down of the television station as a free-speech issue, but their claims had failed to get much traction in the Albanian public.
The investigation into Becchetti’s activities was launched over a major hydroelectric plant in southern Albania that was never built. Prosecutors say his companies issued artificially swollen bills of work that was never done and asked for value-added tax reimbursements through forged documents.
He got the concession to build the Kalivac hydro power station in the first days of the Fatos Nano Socialist government and right after the anarchy of 1997. But he managed to secure support from following governments as well.
Currently, authorities said that Becchetti’s businesses owed about ALL 770 million in unpaid taxes to the authorities.
