A Russian sailor who had to be rescued by helicopter when the yacht he was on sank after hitting rocks near Skerryvore is to be extradited to Norway.
The Norwegian authorities had asked for 35-year old Evgeny Dorofeev, the manager of a large car factory, to be extradited on charges of embezzlement and fraud.
Dorofeev, who has been in custody since being rescued near Skerryvore Lighthouse on February 16, did not consent to the request.
Dorofeev had hired the £200,000 yacht and the company who owned it claimed that the contract specified he should not go outwith Norway’s territorial waters.
At a hearing in Edinburgh Sheriff Court yesterday, defence solicitor Eilidh Yates claimed there was nothing in the hire contract that prohibited him going outwith Norwegian waters.
The company, she said, had claimed it was a breach of contract and that was a civil matter, not criminal.
Fiscal depute Tom Crosbie said that was a matter for the Norwegian authorities to decide.
They had charged him with embezzlement and fraud, a criminal offence.
“It is fairly clear that it is the position of the Norwegian authorities that Mr Dorofeev was in possession of the boat following a deception by failing to sail in Norwegian waters. It had been assumed by the company that he would be sailing with others in a certain area and would return the yacht by the date agreed.
“What is clear is that Mr Dorofeev did not just stray out of Norwegian waters for a matter of hours. He managed to sail round the top of Scotland, going in the wrong direction, and, perhaps wrongly, raising the suspicion that had he not come to grief on the west coast, he may not have returned the boat after the expiry of the contract period. It is clear he had misled the owners of the boat”.
Sheriff Alistair Noble ruled that Dorofeev could be extradited and remanded him in custody to await the decision of the Scottish ministers.
