Abdulkhakov v. Russia, No. 14743/11, ECtHR (First Section), 2 October 2012

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

Art. 3 ECHR

1. With reference to extradition or deportation, in cases where an applicant provides reasoned grounds which cast doubt on the accuracy of the information relied on by the respondent Government, the Court must be satisfied that the assessment made by the authorities of the Contracting State is adequate and sufficiently supported by domestic materials, as well as by materials originating from other reliable sources (case in which the Strasbourg Court granted the applicant's complaints, recognizing that the issue of the risk of ill-treatment towards him had not been subjected to rigorous scrutiny by Russian judicial authorities, either in the refugee status or the extradition proceedings).

2. When a State removes an asylum seeker to an intermediary country, in compliance with its international legal obligations, it must make sure that the intermediary country’s asylum procedure affords sufficient guarantees to avoid an asylum seeker being removed, directly or indirectly, to his country of origin without any evaluation of the risks he faces from the standpoint of Article 3 ECHR (case in which the applicant, prosecuted in Uzbekistan for his religious beliefs, had not been extradited directly to the requesting country, being at first secretly transferred to Tajikstan).