Ukraine has suspended the extradition to Russia of a suspect in a foiled plot to assassinate Russian President Vladimir Putin, after the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) said it would review the case, the foreign ministry said on Tuesday, Aug.21.
A Ukrainian court this month ruled that Adam Osmayev should
be extradited to Russia but he challenged the ruling in the
Strasbourg-based court. He has denied plotting to blow up Putin.
“Ukraine has suspended Adam Osmayev’s extradition. The
Prosecutor General’s office on August 17 received a ruling by
the ECHR informing it that the court was reviewing Osmayev’s
appeal against the extradition,” Interfax news agency quoted a
foreign ministry spokesman as saying.
The court’s press service confirmed that it had notified the
Ukrainian authorities of the appeal and recommended, in line
with standard practice, that the extradition be suspended
pending its review.
Shortly before Russia’s March 4 presidential election,
Ukrainian state media reported a plot by Islamist rebels to kill
Putin, who then served as prime minister and returned to the
Kremlin for a third term as president after the vote.
Russian state television said the plotters, seized after one
blew himself up in a flat in the Ukrainian Black Sea port of
Odessa, had planned to plant a bomb in central Moscow to kill
Putin on his way to work.
Putin’s opponents dismissed the report as a crude attempt to
boost the former KGB spy’s popularity.
