MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 12th July, 2022) European countries have refused to extradite criminals to Russia 43 times from March to May, with some of them explicitly admitting that it was due to political reasons, Russian newspaper Kommersant reported on Tuesday, citing the Russian Prosecutor General's Office.
"If in the first two months of 2022 the oversight services office received only four refusals to extradite requested persons, and all of them were based on objective reasons, then in March-May of this year there were already 43 refusals, which is three times more year-on-year," the prosecutor general's office told the newspaper.
Germany alone denied Russia the extradition of 13 indicted criminals during this period, the office said.
Many countries, including Austria, Germany, the United Kingdom, Italy, Poland and the Czech Republic, did not hide the "political motivation of their decisions," although in most cases the official justification was worded as "contradiction between the extradition and legal principles" and "uncertainty in respect of the rights of persons sought for extradition," the office said, as quoted in the report.
It described the refusal of European countries to cooperate with Russian law enforcement agencies for fighting crime as "an outrageous level" of Russophobia.
On February 24, Russia began a military operation in response to calls for help from the breakaway republics of Donetsk and Luhansk to the east of Ukraine, referred to together as Donbas. Western countries have responded by imposing comprehensive sanctions against Moscow. In late June, the Russian Prosecutor General's Office said that nine European countries, including Germany, Italy and the UK, were denying Russia the extradition of wanted criminals.
