MADRID, November 13 (RAPSI) - The Supreme Court of Spain has refused to extradite Ilya Khaikin, former board chairman of Vneshagrobank and a director at Diskont Bank, who is suspected of seizing land in the Moscow Region, the court's press office reported.

The court ruled that Khaikin's extradition is illegal, thus satisfying an appeal filed by the banker's lawyers.

As previously reported, starting in 2001 Khaikin and his accomplices used the companies they controlled to illegally acquire ownership rights for five land plots, amounting to over 714 hectares total in the Leninsky Luch cooperative farm. At that time, the land plots were worth 35 million rubles (over $1 million). In 2003 the group attempted, but failed, to take over three other plots with a total area of 261 hectares in the same farm.

In August 2007, Khaikin, who had fled to the UK, was put on the international wanted list. He was granted political asylum in the UK in 2008. The British authorities refused to extradite him to Russia.

In October 2012, he was detained by a local Interpol branch in the resort town of Marbella, Spain. A month later the court released him on EUR 500,000 bail. In May 2013, the Supreme Court of Spain ruled that Khaikin should be extradited to Russia. The banker's lawyers appealed this decision.