Communicated on 3 December 2014
FIRST SECTION
Application no. 48528/09
Sergey Valeryevich YAKOVENKO against Russia
lodged on 10 September 2009
STATEMENT OF FACTS
The applicant, Mr Sergey Valeryevich Yakovenko, is an Uzbek national, who was born in 1961. He is now in Uzbekistan. He is represented before the Court by Mr I. Fedotov and Ms L. Stakhiyeva, lawyers practising in Moscow.
The facts of the case, as submitted by the applicant, may be summarised as follows.
On 10 October 2003 a deputy prosecutor of Tashkent, Uzbekistan, put the applicant’s name on the list of wanted persons and ordered his arrest on suspicion of human trafficking with the purpose of sexual exploitation.
On 26 February 2009 the applicant was arrested in Russia.
On 28 February 2009 the Pechorskiy District Court of the Pskov Region ordered the applicant’s detention pending extradition.
On 16 March 2009 the Prosecutor General’s Office of the Russian Federation received a request for the applicant’s extradition from the Prosecutor General of Uzbekistan.
On 25 May 2009 a Deputy Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation ordered the applicant’s extradition to Uzbekistan.
The applicant challenged the extradition order before the Pskov Regional Court.
On 26 June 2009 the Pskov Regional Court found that the extradition order was lawful and upheld it.
On 17 August 2009 the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation upheld the decision on appeal.
On 17 October 2009 the applicant was extradited to Uzbekistan.
COMPLAINTS
1. The applicant complains under Article 5 § 1 (f) of the Convention about unlawfulness of his detention. He argues that Article 109 of the Code of Criminal Procedure sets the initial time-limit for detention at two months. As no extension of his detention was ordered after the expiry of the two-month time-limit, his subsequent detention was unlawful. He further argues that the provisions of the Russian law governing detention pending extradition were neither precise nor foreseeable in their application and did not meet the “quality-of-law” requirement (he refers to Nasrulloyev v. Russia, no. 656/06, 11 October 2007; Ismoilov and Others v. Russia, no. 2947/06, 24 April 2008; and Muminov v. Russia, no. 42502/06, 11 December 2008). He also complains that the extradition proceedings were not conducted with due diligence.
2. The applicant complains under Article 5 § 4 of the Convention that there was no effective procedure by which he could challenge his detention.
QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES
1. Was the applicant’s deprivation of liberty “lawful” within the meaning of Article 5 § 1 (f) of the Convention? Were the provisions governing the applicant’s detention pending extradition sufficiently clear? In particular, did they provide the applicant with an opportunity to estimate the length of his detention pending extradition (see Nasrulloyev v. Russia, no. 656/06, §§ 72-78, 11 October 2007; Ismoilov and Others v. Russia, no. 2947/06, §§ 135-141, 24 April 2008; and Muminov v. Russia, no. 42502/06, §§ 117-123, 11 December 2008)? Was the overall length of the applicant’s detention compatible with Article 5 § 1 (f) of the Convention?
2. Did the applicant have at his disposal the procedure by which the lawfulness of his detention could be examined by a court and his release ordered, as required by Article 5 § 4 of the Convention (see Nasrulloyev, cited above, §§ 84-90; Ismoilov and Others, cited above, §§ 145-152; and Muminov, cited above, § 112-116)?
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