Progress seen in Kazakhstan-EU extradition settlements: Deputy Prosecutor General of Kazakhstan

First Deputy Prosecutor General of Kazakhstan Iogan Merkel has spoken about extradition settlements with the EU nations, Tengrinews reports.

During the October 27 discussion of the draft law "On ratification of the treaty between the Republic of Kazakhstan and the Italian Republic on the transfer of convicted citizens" in the Senate Committee Merkel said that every year Kazakhstan was having discussions with the European Union, which have led to a certain progress in the area.

Previously, the European countries had not practiced extradition with Kazakhstan, he said, whereas lately several nations agreed to it. One of them is Germany, where Kazakhstan extradited a person convicted on drug related charges.

“Switzerland has extradited (a convict) to our country just recently. Spain gave out a killer (…) In general, I shall tell you, the progress is reasonably good,” Merkel said.

In addition, Kazakhstan was negotiating with Spain the extradition of Alexander Pavlov, a former head of Ablyazov’s security. Though Ablyazov himself will not be extradited to Kazakhstan, since a French court decided he should be extradited to Russia.

Merkel declined to comment on the Ablyazov case for the journalists saying that he was not present in the French court. He also did not answer whether Russia would transfer Ablyazov to Kazakhstan. Still, he said that there was a corresponding agreement between Kazakhstan and Russia on transferring convicted persons.

Merkel informed that there were 2,400 foreign nationals serving sentences in Kazakhstan prisons. He added that not all countries were accepting their citizens who committed crimes in Kazakhstan.

For example, Kyrgyzstan did not “take all of them, citing damage to national security”, whereas Russia has accepted 49 people this year, which saved Kazakhstan 160 million tenge (around $900,000).

"It is very beneficial for Kazakhstan that all these people serve their sentences on their homeland, so that their [other countries’] budget will support them,” Deputy Prosecutor General said. 

Reporting by Renat Tashkinbayev, writing by Dinara Urazova