Since the beginning of 2023, Western countries have refused to extradite citizens to Russia 19 times for criminal prosecution, RIA Novosti reports, citing a message from the Prosecutor General’s Office of the Russian Federation.
According to the department, from January to March, the Prosecutor General’s Office received refusals on 19 extradition requests, in eight cases for political reasons: in Poland and Italy, two people each and in Austria, Germany, Bulgaria and Romania, one each. The department claims that they refused to extradite “including those accused of murder, fraud and drug-related crimes.”
The Prosecutor General’s Office stressed that some of the refusals were justified by “a possible violation of the rights and freedoms of the persecuted person in the event of his extradition to law enforcement agencies” of Russia. In other countries, refusals to extradite were justified by the fact that defendants in criminal cases could face “inhuman and degrading treatment” in Russia. The Prosecutor General’s Office stated that these decisions “contradict the obligations of the parties under the European Convention on Extradition of 1957.”
Source: Rosbalt
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