Russian prosecutors appealed with the Supreme Court against a ruling of the Moscow City Court on August 21 against extraditing Khabibullo Nasrulloyev, Tajikistan's trade minister in 1992-97.
Lawyer Anna Stavitskaya, representing Nasrulloyev, said the charges against her client were politically motivated, and added that human rights organizations had long shared this opinion.
"One of the charges pressed against Nasrulloyev is treason," she said. "It shows once again that he is being politically persecuted."
The lawyer said 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.
"There had been no complaints against Nasrulloyev until he went to Russia in July 2003 to meet his elder son," Stavitskaya said.
Nasrulloyev was arrested when Russian prosecutors received a request from their Tajik counterparts to extradite him in July 2003, and was since then held in a pre-trial detention center, which his lawyer 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 the status.
The Moscow City Court will soon consider an appeal against a lower court's decision to deny Nasrulloyev political asylum passed on March 30.
