Zherdytsky Not To Be Bartered

Very soon Germany will officially request Ukraine extradite three German citizens — Witaly Gerde, Arthur Fischer and Andrey Kraemer — who committed a bank robbery on April 2 in Uelsen, Germany and later surrendered to Ukrainian authorities after a failed attempt to flee in a car, announced Dietmar Studemann, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the FRG to Ukraine. He emphasized that the crime had been committed on the territory of Germany and the three robbers were German citizens. Thus, in the ambassador’s opinion, “it would be logical that they be tried in Germany.” Mr. StЯdemann thinks that an official German request to extradite its citizens is just “a matter of time,” basically, of the next two or three weeks. At the same time, the German ambassador dismissed rumors that the three mentioned German nationals might be exchanged for a citizen of Ukraine, former Verkhovna Rada deputy Oleksandr Zherdytsky, now under arrest in Germany on suspicion of complicity in the misappropriation of Ostarbeiter compensation. Ambassador Studemann said on the exchange idea, “This idea can be answered in one word: absurd.”