Vladimir KarajTiranaBIRNFebruary 17, 202308:38Albania’s Ministry of Justice has given the go-ahead to extradite to Russia a well-known blogger and photographer accused of espionage, claiming Moscow has promised she will not face political persecution.
Svetlana Timofeeva. Photo: BIRN/Vladimir Karaj.
Albania’s Ministry of Justice has given a greenlight to Russia’s demand to have a blogger extradited to face espionage charges, claiming it has received “guarantees” from Russia that she will not face political prosecution.
The ministry approved the extradition request even though Igor Krasnov, head of the Russian institution that gave the guarantees, is under EU and US sanctions for human rights violations and despite Russia’s very poor human rights record.
Svetlana Timofeeva, 33, is currently awaiting trial in Albania on separate espionage charges filed by an Albanian prosecutor.
She claims she is simply a blogger interested in exploring abandoned Cold War-era buildings. She has published two photo books on such sites and published on her Instagram profile under the name lanasator, which has some 254,000 followers.
In August last year, she was arrested in Albania after police in found Timofeeva and two companions, one Russian and the other a Ukrainian, at a rundown weapons factory at Gramsh, south of Tirana, where AK-47 rifles were once made.
They found cameras, drones for taking photographs, phones, hand-drawn maps and $6,000 in cash.
She strongly denies spying for Russia. In her blog earlier, she wrote that after publicly criticising the Russian invasion of Ukraine, she had moved to Georgia.
“The Ministry of Justice had administered the request for extradition of the above-mentioned subject, for whom, the General Prosecution of the Russian Federation …. has guaranteed that the extradition request doesn’t aim to prosecute this persona for political, racial, religious, ethnicity or political views,” the ministry told BIRN in a response to questions.
“We have forwarded the request to the General Prosecution as it has been foreseen by the Penal Procedural Code and the European Convention on Extradition,” the ministry added.
The Russian request is being processed in the Court of Elbasan, in central Albania. Timofeeva had asked to not be extradited.
Asked by BIRN whether Western sanctions imposed against Russia can affect its stance on the matter, the Ministry of Justice dismissed the suggestion, claiming the sanctions are limited to political and economic issues.
“Collaboration in the justice sector has no relation with the punitive measures, which are only political and economic,” the ministry wrote.
Isuf Shehu, a lawyer representing Timofeeva, condemned the ministry’s stance. Other human rights lawyers also expressed shock to BIRN, pointing to abundant proofs of human rights violations committed by Russia.
“The Ministry of Justice should have had first evaluated the human rights situation in Russia before judging the merits of the extradition request,” Shehu told BIRN.
“The Ministry of Justice has an obligation to verify whether the respective body in the requesting party, in this case, the General Prosecution [of Russia] truly respect human rights,” he added.
Dorjan Matlija, a human rights lawyer in Tirana, underlined the abundance of such violations in Russia. “The Russian Federation has left many proofs of human rights violation, which is proved by a high number of European Court of Human Rights cases,” Matlija said.
The fact that Russia is no longer party to the European Convention on Human Rights should have been enough for the Ministry to not accept its “guarantees” in their face value, according to Matlija.
Erida Skendaj, director of Albania Helsinki Committee, urged the Ministry to follow world news or reports from countries better informed about the situation there before handling the request.
“There is a potential high risk that she will be politically prosecuted, as has happened with other people,” she said.
Gentjan Sejrani, a lawyer and activist, said guarantees given by Russia were worth nothing. “It is like taking for true the Russian statements suggesting that there are no [Russian] human rights violation currently going on in Ukraine,” he said.
Mustafa Turku, a public prosecutor covering the case, told BIRN his institution has no position on the matter. “We are neither in or against it,” Turku said.
Igor Krasnov, General Prosecutor of Russia, has been sanctioned by the United States and the European Union because “in his capacity as the General Prosecutor, [he] is responsible for serious human rights violation.”
Krasnov was sanctioned by the Council of the European Union for his role for the detention of the Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny in January 2021.
“In his capacity as Prosecutor General, he is responsible for serious human rights violations, including the arbitrary detentions of protesters, and for widespread and systematic repression of freedom of peaceful assembly and of association, and freedom of opinion and expression,” the decision reads.
Albania endorsed the EU sanctions regime against Russia in a Government Decision of April 2021.
Source link: balkaninsight.com
