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Ukrainian sailors convicted in Venezuela of cocaine trafficking to be extradited - Foreign Ministry

06 November 2010 17:57 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. Two Ukrainian sailors sentenced to nine-year imprisonment in Venezuela for the shipment of 125 kilograms of cocaine will be extradited in the nearest future, the head of the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry’s press service said on Saturday, APA reports quoting RIA Novosti.
In 2007, 125 kilograms of cocaine were discovered on board a Cayman Islands-flagged cargo vessel in the Venezuelan port of Maracaibo. Police then detained two sailors, Ukrainian nationals. In 2010 they were sentenced to nine-year imprisonment for trafficking drugs.
"One of the vital and crucial points for the Ukrainian side is the end of the extradition procedures over the two sailors to Ukraine," Unian news agency quoted Oleg Voloshyn as saying.
Voloshyn said the extradition issue was on the agenda of the talks between Ukrainian Foreign Minister Kostyantyn Hryshchenko and his Venezuelan counterpart, Nicolas Maduro Moros, who was currently on his visit to Ukraine.
There are no any political obstacles for solving this problem, Voloshyn said.