European Court of Human Rights

Information Note on the Court’s case-law No. 172

March 2014

M.G. v. Bulgaria - 59297/12

Judgment 25.3.2014 [Section IV], See: (French Text) [2014] ECHR 305

Article 3

Extradition

Proposed extradition to Russia of man suspected of belonging to terrorist group: extradition would constitute a violation

Facts - The applicant is a Russian national of Chechen origin who had lived in Ingushetia in the northern Caucasus until 2004. In 2003 he fell under suspicion of belonging to an armed jihadist group operating in that region. In 2004 he fled to Poland, where he, his wife and their three children obtained refugee status. In February 2005 an arrest warrant was issued against him, and the Russian authorities issued an international wanted notice, which was channelled through Interpol. In December 2005 the applicant and his family settled in Germany, where they were granted refugee status. In July 2012, while he was driving to Turkey, the applicant was arrested after an identity check at the Bulgarian border. In reply to an official request from Russia, the Bulgarian authorities initiated extradition proceedings. Despite the intervention of the representative of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Sofia, who pointed out that the danger to the applicant which had led to the granting of refugee status in two different countries was still extant, the court of appeal ruled in favour of his extradition in September 2012.

Following the decision of the European Court of Human Rights to apply Rule 39 of the Rules of Court, the applicant was transferred to prison in Sofia, where he is still being held.

Law - Article 3: In scores of cases against the Russian Federation the Court had found serious human rights violations in the northern Caucasus, including Ingushetia, perpetrated in the course of anti-terrorist operations or during criminal prosecutions of persons suspected of belonging to insurgent groups. Most cases had involved forced disappearance, torture and inhuman and degrading treatment, as well as the lack of effective investigations into allegations of such violations. While the majority of these findings of violations of Articles 2 and 3 of the Convention concerned events which had taken place in the first five years of this century, it was nonetheless true that this relevant fact had to be taken into account in determining the overall situation in this region of Russia. Moreover, the applicant’s prosecution and sudden departure from the northern Caucasus to Poland both dated precisely from that period. Drawing on a large number of reports, the Court was compelled to conclude that the northern Caucasus, including Ingushetia, was still an armed conflict zone characterised by violence and insecurity and serious violations of fundamental human rights, such as extrajudicial executions, forced disappearances, torture and other types of inhuman or degrading treatment, and collective punishments of specific local population groups.

As regards the applicant’s individual situation, his refugee status in two other European countries was a major indication, although it only constituted a starting point for analysing his current situation. The Russian authorities had been actively searching for the applicant and had issued an international wanted notice. Shortly after his arrest in Bulgaria they had applied to the Bulgarian authorities for his extradition to Russia. It was likely that if he were extradited the applicant would be imprisoned in one of the provisional detention centres in the northern Caucasus. Since he was facing charges concerning offences related to the activities of an armed insurgent group, he would be exposed in particular to a risk of being tortured in order to extract confessions, or being subjected to other types of inhuman and degrading treatment. These allegations had been corroborated by several reports, including that of the Council of Europe’s Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CPT). Furthermore, the applicant claimed that his relatives in Ingushetia had been harassed by the Russian police, described cases of arbitrary searches, seizures, threats and ill-treatment, and explained that his sister had disappeared. Several international reports also appeared to suggest such a possibility.

Further, the assurances given by the Russian Prosecutor General were insufficient to dispel the risk of the applicant’s being subjected to ill-treatment. In particular, the international reports pointed out that persons accused of belonging to the armed group in question operating in the northern Caucasus were often tortured during their detention and that the relevant Russian authorities frequently ignored their obligation to conduct effective investigations into cases of alleged ill-treatment in the provisional detention centres in the northern Caucasus. Moreover, the Bulgarian Government had not specified any practical measures it was intending to adopt in order to ensure that the Russian authorities complied with their undertakings or whether its diplomatic services had already cooperated in the past with the Russian authorities in similar cases of extradition to the northern Caucasus. Nevertheless, the domestic court of appeal had drawn exclusively on the same assurances from the Russian authorities in authorising the applicant’s extradition: insufficient attention had been paid to whether or not the applicant was running a severe and substantiated risk of suffering ill-treatment in his country of origin. Consequently, the applicant had been deprived of the safeguards required by Article 3 of the Convention. These facts were sufficient to conclude that the applicant faced a severe and substantiated risk of being subjected to torture or other types of inhuman and degrading treatment in his country of origin.

Conclusion: extradition would constitute a violation (unanimously).

Article 41: Finding of a violation constituted sufficient just satisfaction in respect of any non-pecuniary damage.

 

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