Following the issuance of an Interpol arrest warrant for Luft on charges of trafficking weapons to China and Libya, authorities in southern Cyprus detained him at Larnaca International Airport. Then, he was scheduled for extradition to the US.
The Larnaca District Court ordered him to pay 150,000 euros as a guarantee, to put up another 250,000 euros with a guarantor, and to show himself at the central police station of Paphos, where he was living at the time, on a daily basis. After considering the US extradition request, the court freed him while it was still deciding the case.
Luft failed to show up as required on March 28 at the Paphos police station. He made Luft a missing person report and voiced worry about his client’s safety on the same day.
A day later, Luft’s abandoned car was located, and according to sources cited by Philenews, Cypriot police are now contemplating the likelihood that Luft has departed the country completely.
The €400,000 Luft put up as a guarantee has been placed on hold since he missed his court appointment on April 3.
According to the Cyprus Mail, Haris Hadjiyiasemi, a spokesman for the Larnaca police, said that he was the subject of a new European and international arrest warrant.
In response to the allegations, Luft said that he had “never been an arms dealer” and that the US Justice Department was “trying to bury me to protect [US President Joe] Biden” and his family.
According to the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security’s (IAGS) website, Luft is a writer, a specialist on energy security, and a diplomat. IAGS is a think tank that focuses on economic, security, and energy developments.
He has previously made public criticisms of both American foreign policy and the Biden administration as a whole. Luft said that the Biden administration’s “commitment to democracy going only as far as its interests allow” at a gathering in Beijing in 2021 called “International Forum on Democracy: the Shared Human Values.”
