Poland received German request to arrest suspect in Nord Stream probe

Poland has received a European arrest warrant issued by Berlin in connection with the 2022 attack on Nord Stream pipelines, but the suspect has already left Poland as Germany failed to include his name in a database of wanted persons, Polish prosecutors told Reuters.

The multi-billion dollar Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines transporting gas under the Baltic Sea were ruptured by a series of blasts in September 2022, seven months after Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

German investigators believe the Ukrainian diver was part of a team that planted the explosives, the SZ and Die Zeit newspapers reported alongside the ARD broadcaster, citing unnamed sources.

Polish National Public Prosecutor's Office spokeswoman Anna Adamiak said German authorities sent a European arrest warrant to the District Prosecutor's Office in Warsaw in June in the case of Ukrainian citizen Volodymyr Z., in connection with proceedings conducted against him in Germany.

"Ultimately, Volodymyr Z. was not detained, because at the beginning of July he left Polish territory, crossing the Polish-Ukrainian border," she wrote in an emailed statement in reply to Reuters's questions.

"Free crossing of the Polish-Ukrainian border by the above-mentioned person was possible because German authorities... did not include him in the database of wanted persons, which meant that the Polish Border Guard had no knowledge and no grounds to detain Volodymyr Z."

Polish law does not allow for revealing the full name of suspects. The German prosecutor general's office declined to comment on the media reports.

The German interior ministry declined to comment and the justice ministry did not immediately reply to an emailed request for comment.

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