Both Defense and Prosecution Challenge the Court Ruling
The Mtatsminda-Krtsanisi District Court of the capital city ruled on March 13 that two of the three alleged Chechens should be handed over to the Russian side, while extraditing the third one was ruled illegal. However, the case would be appealed at the Supreme Court.
Three persons from Chechnya were in the group of 13 armed men, detained by the Georgian border guards last August for illegal crossing of the border. Georgia has already extradited five of them to Moscow, fulfilling Russia’s demand for extradition.
The court decided that request for extraditing Husein Alkhanov is groundless, as he has the refugee status and cannot be handed over to Russia under the Georgian law. The judge ruled that the confidential letter of the Interior Ministry to the Ministry of Refugees and Settlement, dated November 20, 2002, regarding removal of Alkhanov’s refugee status, was groundless. The judge has satisfied request for extradition of the other two detainees Rustam Elkhajiev and Ruslan Gelogaev to Russia.
The ruling left unsatisfied both prosecution and the defense. Both sides intend to appeal the decision at the Supreme Court.
“The court can not decide to extradite a person to a country, which practices the death penalty. Russia still has such laws. Therefore, we will use our right to appeal the Supreme Court within 10 days,” Malkhaz Pataraia, one of the defense lawyers, told Civil Georgia after the trial.
Representatives of the Chechen community in Georgia and several Georgian non-governmental organizations also protested the ruling.
“The decision of the court is absolutely illegal and groundless. We shall not hand over innocent people to our main foe – Russia,” Meka Khangoshvili, one of the protesters, told Civil Georgia. “We will support the appeal and hope that the Supreme Court will make a just decision,” she added.
The prosecutor Paata Mskhiladze maintains, that the judge should also have ruled positively on extradition of the third detainee, Alkhanov.
“We will study the decision in detail and appeal to the Supreme Court within the next few days,” Mskhiladze told Civil Georgia.
It is anticipated that he lawyers of the Chechens will try to convince the Supreme Court that in case of extradition, the persons could suffer a death penalty, outlawed in Georgia. On the other hand lawyers will claim that one of the Chechens to be extradited, Gelogaev, has a valid refugee status granted by the Georgian authorities.
At the trail on March 10, Acting Minister for Refugees and Accommodation Otar Kheinishvili said that Gelogaev received the refugee status in 2000, but he did not re-register one year later and therefore his status was cancelled automatically.
However, the defending side objected to this statement, saying that the Ministry does not have clarified mechanism of cancellation of the refugee status. The defendants claim that a person, who has been registered as a refugee once and has not left the country after that, still enjoys the status.
“According to the Article 8 of the Refugee Law, a person enjoys a refugee status until his or her return to the home country and resumption of the peaceful life there. Therefore this statement [of the Acting minister] is false,” lawyer Maka Dzamukashvili told Civil Georgia.
The protracted court process has already angered Russian officials. Moscow has accused Georgia of delaying extradition of alleged Chechen militants using legal means. The trial might be protracted even further as the Supreme Court may return the case back to the district court for reconsideration, as it has already happened last December.
By Tea Gularidze, Civil Georgia
