ByJERUSALEM POST STAFF

The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit upheld the dismissal of Alexander Khochinksy's suit against Poland last Friday after he presented a suit against them for seeking his extradition over a painting he owned which was allegedly taken from Poland by Nazi troops.

Kochinsky, a Russian foreign national and art dealer living in the US, started his fight against Poland in 2010 after contacting them in order to seek reparation for the loss of his family's land during the Nazi invasion of WWII.

When contacting Poland, Khochinsky attempted to negotiate, offering them a painting he thought was similar to Antoine Pesne's Girl With a Dove which had previously been owned by Poland before being lost to the Nazis during the war. The painting that he offered them, however, was actually the original work.

Poland responded by initiating criminal proceedings against him, claiming that he had illegally obtained their painting, and they subsequently submitted a request to extradite him, although this proved unsuccessful.
The request was dismissed by a US District Court judge in 2015 who cited that there was a lack of evidence indicating that Khochinsky knew the painting was stolen when he acquired it.

In 2018 Khochinsky filed a suit against Poland for the damage their charges had done, stating that the extradition process had violated his rights. The case was dismissed by the district court, which was recently backed by the Court of Appeal.

The Court of Appeal upheld the ruling, stating that "extradition is based on the principle of international comity, and a foreign country’s extradition request does not imply a waiver of sovereign immunity under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act."