Anna Stavitskaya said prosecutors had decided to extradite Khabibullo Nasrulloyev to Tajikistan, where he is wanted on charges including treason and murder, on July 3.
"I immediately appealed the decision of the Prosecutor General's Office in the European Human Rights Court, and the Strasbourg Court ruled on July 12 to recommend to Russia not to extradite Nasrulloyev to Tajikistan," the lawyer said.
Khabibulo Nasrulloyev, the Central Asian country's trade minister in 1992-97, was arrested when Russian prosecutors received a request from their Tajik counterparts to extradite him. The former minister has been held in a pre-trial detention center since July 2003, which his lawyer has protested as illegal.
"Under the law, nobody can be kept in pre-trial detention for more than 18 months," Stavitskaya said May 6. "My client has been kept in pre-trial detention longer than that, which is blatant violation."
On the same day, a district court rejected an appeal from Nasrulloyev's lawyers against an earlier ruling denying the ex-minister refugee status. Migration services also said there were no grounds for granting him that status.
Nasrulloyev, who was a member of the People's Front countering Islamic opposition, and his family left for Uzbekistan after attempts were made on his life. Nasrulloyev then traveled to meet his son in Russia, where he was arrested, Stavitskaya said.
Stavitskaya added the charges against her client were politically motivated.
