IZGUBLJENI U PREVODU – IZRUČENJE KURDA DŽEVDETA AJAZA REPUBLICI TURSKOJ
LOST IN TRANSLATION – EXTRADITION OF THE KURDISH DISSIDENT CEVDET AYAZ TO TURKEY

Summary/Abstract: Cevdet Ayaz, Kurdish political activist, was arrested at the request of the Turkish judiciary in Serbia on 30 November 2016. In the marathon extradition proceedings, after Serbian appeals court has overruled earlier first-instance court decisions several times, the courts in Serbia found that the legal pre-conditions for his extradition to Turkey were fulfilled. On the same day that the confirming appeals court’s decision was delivered to the first-instance court, the Justice Minister authorized the extradition. Upon arrest, Cevdet Ayaz applied for asylum in the Republic of Serbia, but his request was rejected. In spite of the UN Committee against Torture demand that the extradition be put on temporary hold, and previous decision of the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, in which the Court found that Cevdet Ayaz’s human rights were violated in the proceedings in which he was sentenced to 15 years in prison – and for which the extradition was required – Serbian judicial authorities approved the extradition. After a year he spent in detention pending extradition, Cevdet Ayas was, without legal basis, placed in the Reception Center for Foreigners in Padinska skela, from where he was then extradited to Turkey.

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