Gal Luft, an Israeli professor who was held in Cyprus pending a decision on whether he would be extradited to the US to stand trial for arms trafficking, has gone missing, police told Phileleftheros.
Luft, 56, was on pretrial release after he was arrested on February 16 at Larnaca International Airport while trying to board a plane to Tel Aviv.
Interpol had issued an arrest warrant for the professor, at the FBI’s request, as he is a suspect in a case of trafficking arms to China and Libya between 2015-2023.
In March, Larnaca District Court ordered his pretrial release, pending a decision on whether he would be extradited to the US.
Until then, Luft was ordered to pay €150,000 in bail and appear at the police station nearest to his place of residence in Paphos, twice a week.
However, on March 28, police confirmed he went missing. On the same day, his Greek Cypriot lawyer filed a missing persons report for his client, saying that he is afraid for his life.
On March 29, police found Luft’s car abandoned in an area in Dromolaxia, Larnaca. Authorities told Phileleftheros they are probing the possibility that he fled Cyprus through Pyla.
Luft, an energy expert, has maintained that his arrest is politically motivated because he accused Joe Biden’s son, Hunter, of having a mole in the FBI which he used to illegally provide classified information to his Chinese business partners.
I’ve been arrested in Cyprus on a politically motivated extradition request by the US.
The US, claiming I’m an arms dealer. It would be funny if it weren’t tragic.
I’ve never been an arms dealer.
DOJ is trying to bury me to protect Joe,Jim&Hunter Biden.
Shall I name names?
— Gal Luft (@GalLuft) February 19, 2023
Luft claims that he tried reporting the Biden family’s relations with the Chinese state-controlled CEFC company to the US Justice Department. Specifically, he said that CEFC paid Hunter Biden and his uncle, Jim Biden, $100,000 and $65,000 in monthly fees, respectively, to acquire information from inside the FBI.
Prior to his arrest, Luft served as co-director of the Washington-based Institute for the Analysis of Global Security, a think tank focused on energy, security and economic trends, as per its website.
Luft has been publicly critical of American foreign policy, as well as the Biden administration as a whole, in the past. In a 2021 Beijing summit, titled ‘International Forum on Democracy: the Shared Human Values,’ Luft accused the Biden administration’s “commitment to democracy going only as far as its interests allow.”
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