Week-ending 28 August 2020
‘Despite numerous appeals to the courts, the prosecutor’s office and the department of the Federal Chancellor about the danger threatening him in Russia, and the inhuman treatment, he was deported to Russia. Unfortunately, this often happens that despite our objections, the Chechens seeking asylum are extradited to Russia, and there they are killed.’
– Ekkehard Maas, head of the German-Caucasian Friendship Society
Source: ‘Chechen asylum-seeker extradited from Germany reported killed,’ OC Media, 26 August 2020
On Thursday, 27 August 2020, Caucasian Knot reported that after the murder in the counter-terrorist operation (CTO) held in Ingushetia of Khusen Gadamauri, a native of Chechnya, who had been extradited from Germany, it is necessary to reconsider the practice of extraditing Chechens to Russia, said Ekkehard Maas, the head of the German-Caucasian Society. The death of Gadamauri raises concern for the fate of other Chechens who have been extradited or are awaiting it, said Pascal Chaudot, the head of the Chechnya Committee in France. The statement posted on the website of the German-Caucasian Society says that Gadamauri “was one of the young people who refused to serve in Ramzan Kadyrov’s private army.” The Society has also states that Russia “is not a legal state with which to cooperate, especially when young Chechens are extradited, charges against whom were brought under the bloody dictatorship.” According to Kirill Koroteev, the head of the international practice of the “Agora” Human Rights Group and a lawyer working with the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), “now Germany, most likely, can do nothing, and even if there were detailed guarantees, at most, what it could to write a note of protest to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA).” According to Mr Koroteev, “the ECtHR sees no problem in extraditions to Russia, even to Northern Caucasus.”
