Court in Ukraine upholds former Tajik PM's extradition
KYIV. March 21 (Interfax) - Kyiv's Court of Appeals has upheld the order for the extradition of former Tajik Prime Minster Abdulamilk Abdulladzhanov, issued by the city's Shevchenkivsky court.
The ruling was passed on Thursday after hearings of an appeal filed by Abdulladzhanov's defense lawyer Andrei Fedur, an Interfax correspondent reported.
The court said in a statement that the ruling passed by the Shevchenkivsky Court which orders Abdulladzhanov's arrest prior to his actual extradition to Tajikistan, limited to 12 months, has been upheld and the appeal not granted."
The ruling may not be appealed.
The former Tajik prime minister will remain under arrest pending his extradition, but the arrest will not last longer than 12 months.
It was reported earlier that the Shevchenkivsky Court had sanctioned Abdulladzhanov's extradition arrest. Abdulladzhanov had been detained at Kyiv's Boryspil International Airport at the request of the Tajik authorities upon arriving in Kyiv from Los Angeles on February 5.
The Ukrainian State Migration Service said Abdulladzhanov had not applied for refugee status.
The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees reminded Kyiv that Abdulladzhanov had refugee status in the United States and therefore, in line with international law, could not be extradited to any country.
The Boryspil Town Court in the Kyiv region granted the prosecutor's office request on Abdulladzhanov's temporary arrest for 40 days on February 7.
The Tajik Prosecutor General's Office forwarded documents to Kyiv substantiating Abdulladzhanov's extradition on February 18.
Amnesty International issued a statement in early March to urge Ukraine to deny Abdulladzhanov's extradition, warning that he could face torture at home.
Abdulladzhanov was appointed prime minister of Tajikistan in September 1992, but resigned in 1993 and was appointed ambassador to Russia soon afterwards. In 1994, he ran in the second presidential elections in Tajikistan but, according to official reports, lost to Emomali Rahmon, Tajikistan's current president.
After that, he left Tajikistan, stayed in Russia for several years, then moved to the United States in 1998 and has lived there since then.
Tajik authorities accuse Abdulladzhanov of plotting an assassination attempt on Rahmon on April 30, 1997, when the president was wounded in the leg. Abdulladzhanov was also charged with organizing a riot in the Sughd region, which claimed dozens of lives in 1998. The former prime minister has denied any involvement in his interviews to Western media.
Tajikistan has its next presidential election set for November this year, and it has been rumored over the last few months that Abdulladzhanov would support an opposition candidate who has not yet declared his participation. Abdulladzhanov has not been interviewed for a long time, and so his stand on the issue is unclear.
