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Makhmudzhan Ergashev v. Russia, No. 49747/11, ECtHR (First Section), 16 October 2012

Abstract

Judicial cooperation in criminal matters. Serious risk of torture or ill-treatment in case of extradition of the applicant to the Requesting State. 

Normative references

Art. 3 ECHR

Ruling

1. In cases where an applicant alleges that he or she is a member of a group systematically exposed to ill-treatment, the protection of Article 3 ECHR enters into play when the applicant establishes, where necessary on the basis of the information contained in recent reports from independent international human rights protection organisations or governmental sources, that there are serious reasons to believe in the existence of the practice in question and his or her membership of the group concerned (case in which the Strasbourg Court considered that the applicant, an ethnic Uzbek, would have been subject to the risk of ill-treatments in case of extradition to Kyrgyzstan, despite the fact that the request was connected with charges for financial crimes).
2. Assurances provided by the authorities of the Requesting State are not in themselves sufficient to ensure adequate protection against the risk of ill-treatment. There is an obligation to examine whether assurances provide, in their practical application, a sufficient guarantee that the applicant will be protected against the risk of ill-treatment (case in which the Strasbourg Court considered not sufficient the assurances provided by the Prosecutor General of the Kyrgyz Republic in order to protect the applicant from the risk of inhuman or degrading treatment in case of deportation to the requesting country).