U.N. v. Russia, No. 14348/15, ECtHR (Third Section), 26 July 2016

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. The applicant’s forced return to the Requesting State, in the form of extradition or otherwise, would amount to a violation of Art. 3 ECHR, if there are substantive grounds for believing that the interested person would face a real risk of exposure to treatment proscribed by Article 3 ECHR if returned to that Country (case in which the applicant, an ethnic Uzbek, complained about the decision made by Russian judicial authorities to grant his extradition to Kyrgyzstan).
2. The applicant’s conduct, however undesirable or dangerous it might have been, cannot overturn the absolute prohibition of ill-treatment under Article 3 ECHR (case in which Russian judicial authorities granted the extradition sought by the Requesting State, relying on the applicant’s initial confession of some ordinary criminal offences).

In the grounds for the judgment, the Strasburg Court has stressed in particular the widespread and routine use of torture and other ill-treatment by law-enforcement agencies in the southern part of Kyrgyzstan in respect of members of the Uzbek community, the impunity of law enforcement officers, and the absence of sufficient safeguards for the applicants in the requesting country.