The Prosecutor General’s Office of Kazakhstan has decided to extradite Russian opposition activist Yulia Yemelyanova to Russia, according to her lawyer Murat Adam, Fergana News Agency reported.
The lawyer says he is urgently preparing an appeal to the Kazakh Supreme Court to cancel the decision.
Yemelyanova is a former staff member of the St. Petersburg headquarters of Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny. In 2021, Russian authorities opened a criminal case against her on theft charges. Investigators allege she stole a phone from a taxi driver in St. Petersburg. Yemelyanova denied the accusation and said the case had been fabricated. She left the country once the case reached the court.
Last August, she was detained at Almaty airport. Yemelyanova was in Kazakhstan in transit, traveling from Georgia to Vietnam. She was detained because Russia had placed her on an interstate wanted list. She is currently being held in a pretrial detention center in Almaty.
Yemelyanova has applied for asylum in Kazakhstan, and her request is still under review. Less than two weeks ago, Kazakhstan’s Prosecutor General’s Office approved the extradition to Russia of Chechen activist Mansur Movlaev, who had been denied refugee status. In early February, 25-year-old IT developer Aleksandr Kachkurkin was deported from Kazakhstan to Russia, where he was detained on treason charges. On Feb. 5, a court in Astana denied refugee status to Russian serviceman Yevgeny Korobov. Once the decision takes effect, he will be required to leave Kazakhstan within 30 days. If deported to Russia, he faces up to 15 years in prison on desertion charges.
