Appeal court will resume Antonov questioning in Snoras case

Lithuania’s Court of Appeal continued hearing the case over the embezzlement of assets from the bankrupt Snoras bank on Monday and plans to resume questioning convicted former bank chief Vladimir Antonov on Tuesday, LRT reported.

During Monday’s hearing, Antonov discussed the circumstances surrounding Snoras’s bankruptcy 15 years ago and transactions involving the acquisition of various businesses, including an English football club.

Antonov was brought to Lithuania in May after a French court finally rejected his appeal against detention under a European Arrest Warrant and upheld Lithuania’s extradition request. He had been detained in the French city of Baden last year.

Presiding judge Aušra Bielskė said the court had received documents from the Criminal Police Bureau on Antonov’s extradition. The total cost exceeded 5,000 euros, and a prosecutor has asked the court to order Antonov to reimburse the expenses.

In July, the Court of Appeal granted Antonov’s request to begin serving his prison sentence before the verdict becomes final. The verdict will take effect once the Court of Appeal issues its decision.

The court began hearing the criminal case on its merits in late June. Antonov then pleaded guilty to all the crimes for which he was convicted by the court of first instance.

On Monday, judges asked Antonov why he had used Snoras funds rather than his personal money to buy so-called bad loans during the financial crisis, which he said he had done to stabilise the bank.

Antonov said his personal financial position had been poor during the 2008–2009 global financial crisis. He said that while he might have appeared wealthy on paper, he was not wealthy in practice, and could not in fact be considered a billionaire at the time.

He also said the crisis had affected both the Conversgroup group, which included Snoras, and him personally. According to Antonov, funds were used in 2009 and early 2010 to restore the value of assets so they could be sold, realised or pledged.

According to the case documents, Antonov and Raimondas Baranauskas, another former Snoras executive who is hiding in Russia, obtained the funds at issue by pledging securities. The money was transferred to their personal accounts.

Antonov repeatedly maintained that the funds had been used to buy bad loans and increase the bank’s capital and reserves for those loans. Asked whether the entire sum cited in the asset embezzlement case had been spent on acquiring the loans, he confirmed that it had.

Antonov said he had personally held 30 million to 35 million US dollars. He maintained that the money had not come from any of the group’s banks but had been his personal savings kept for a rainy day.