DUSHANBE, October 3, Asia-Plus – On Monday October 2, Russia”s Supreme Court rejected an appeal from prosecutors against a lower court”s refusal to extradite a former Tajik consumer’s union (Tojikmatlubot) head wanted on treason and murder charges at home.
Russian prosecutors appealed with the Supreme Court against a ruling of the Moscow City Court on August 21 against extraditing Habibullo Nasrulloyev, Tojikmatlubot head in 1992-1997.
Lawyer Anna Stavitskaya, representing Nasrulloyev, said the charges against her client were politically motivated, and added that human rights organizations had long shared this opinion.
“One of the charges pressed against Nasrulloyev is treason,” she said. “It shows once again that he is being politically persecuted.”
The lawyer said Nasrulloyev, who was a member of the pro-government Popular Front countering United Tajik Opposition (UTO), and his family left for Uzbekistan after attempts were made on his life, Stavitskaya said. According to her, Nasrulloyev then traveled to meet his son in Russia, where he was arrested.
Nasrulloyev was arrested when Russian prosecutors received a request from their Tajik counterparts to extradite him in July 2003, and was since then held in a pre-trial detention center, which his lawyer protested as illegal.
“Under the law, nobody can be kept in pre-trial detention for more than 18 months,” Stavitskaya said May 6. “My client has been kept in pre-trial detention longer than that, which is blatant violation.”
On the same day, a district court rejected an appeal from Nasrulloyev”s lawyers against an earlier ruling denying the ex-minister refugee status. Migration services also said there were no grounds for granting him the status.
The Moscow City Court will soon consider an appeal against a lower court”s decision to deny Nasrulloyev political asylum passed on March 30.
