Two major multinational cases involving extradition requests concluded in recent weeks.
While Thailand teetered between heeding the conflicting requests on the part of Australia and Bahrain for the Bahraini footballer Hakeem al-Araibi, the courts debated the case of Dmitry Ukrainsky, a Russian cyberscammer who was wanted by both the United States and Russia for fraud.
And as the world was focused on Araibi's release, a decision was made on the similarly conflicting set of multinational requests for Ukrainsky, who was leading a multi-million-dollar cyber scam that sent malware-infected emails to victims in Australia, the US, Japan, Italy, Germany and England.
Ukrainsky was arrested at the request of the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and convicted of money laundering in 2016 in Pattaya, where he was operating a yacht rental business. He was apprehended along with his Uzbek accomplice, Olga Komova, who was deported to the United States on the same charges.
The FBI tracked down Ukrainsky, who had been on the run for over 10 years, after tracing a series of wire transfers from victims' bank accounts to Thailand.
Despite Thailand's extradition treaty with the US, and although the FBI conducted the investigation and submitted the initial extradition request, the Thai courts spent almost three years reaching a final decision on what to do with him.
Last year, the Russian extradition request was granted with the stipulation that Ukrainsky would not face charges in Russia until completing his nearly 11-year prison term in Thailand for money laundering and fraud. Last month, the US request was also granted, leaving the gaping question of "Where will he go next?".
Meanwhile, Ukrainsky maintains his innocence and has consistently pleaded not guilty to the all three countries' charges. He has 30 days from the Feb 20 ruling to file an appeal.
There is no defined protocol for granting two separate extradition requests, so there is not only lack of clarity in Thailand's decision-making process, but also in the legal standards of execution, once the decision is made.
Though Araibi is legally classified as a refugee and Ukrainsky is a convicted criminal, the two cases highlight Thailand's ambiguous procedures when it comes to making a decision on which country's request to honour.
The handling of both the Ukrainskiy and Araibi cases also seems to show that Thailand does not take the varying strength of its diplomatic relations into account.
Ukrainsky's story is not new. Russia has submitted competing extradition requests, especially for cybercriminals, before, and it is a common tactic that Moscow uses to prevent its citizens from being extradited to other countries, particularly to the United States.
In most comparable cases around the world, however, priority has been given to the US request.
Take, for instance, the case of Peter Levashov, another Russian man involved in a million-dollar international malware and email fraud scheme.
He was arrested in Spain in April 2017, also at the request of the FBI.
Like Ukrainsky's case here in Thailand, shortly after the US demanded his return, Russia submitted a request claiming Levashov was wanted for crimes committed several years before.
Despite Russian objections, however, Levashov was transferred to the US in February 2018.
In Araibi's case, while Thailand and Australia have deep diplomatic relations and overwhelming evidence suggested that Bahrain's charges against him may have been false, Thailand did not give Australian lobbying for his return the priority in its considerations.
Although Thailand-Bahrain relations are close, Thailand's legal and financial agreements with Australia are significantly more extensive and have a greater impact on the nation as a whole.
Nonetheless, had Bahrain not withdrawn its extradition request, Araibi may have languished in Thai detention for years while fighting against being sent back to Bahrain.
While exceptional instances of competing multinational requests must be evaluated on a case-by-case basis, Thailand might find it useful to look back on the way it has dealt with the Araibi and Ukrainsky sagas to establish clearer legal standards and treaties, taking greater account of its diplomatic relations and the overall implications of its international relationships.
And while the Ukrainsky case is unique because it involves a cybercrime in which the crime was committed in one country and the victims were in another, weighing relations, as well as looking to other countries' models may have helped to clarify which nation's request to heed.
Leah Carter is a sub-editor of the Bangkok Post.
