Finnish court rules not to extradite Chechen refugees Gataevs to Lithuania

On March 17, the court in Helsinki made a decision not to extradite Chechen refugees Gataevs to the authorities of Lithuania, having sent their application for refuge to a new consideration. This was reported by Oksana Chelysheva, a human rights defender and journalist, one of the heads of the Finland-based organization "The Society of Russian-Chechen Friendship".

"Therefore, currently the Gataev married couple remains in Finland," Oksana Chelysheva told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.

On March 16, the spouses Khadizhat and Malik Gataev were rejected political asylum in Finland. As reported by the "Rosbalt-Kavkaz", the Immigration Department of Finland made a negative decision on their petition; and they were under a threat of deportation to Lithuania. The Gataevs decided to appeal against the decision at the Administrative Court of Helsinki.

On March 16, the Supreme Court of Lithuania held its session in Vilnius on the appeal of the verdict in relation to the married couple from Chechnya. The judgement was postponed by a week.

The "Caucasian Knot" correspondent has failed to get any comments on the case from the Lithuanian party. The embassy of Lithuania in Russia gave the correspondent the telephone number of the press service of the Department of State Security of the Lithuanian Republic and recommended to address them. However, nobody answered to the calls to that number.

"We've addressed more than once to Public Prosecutor Namite Oshkutite, but she, firstly, refused to speak in the Russian or English languages, and, secondly, when we came to her with a Russian-Lithuanian interpreter, she just ran away from her office; it repeated more than once," said Oksana Chelysheva.

"The official letters asking to return the belongings confiscated from the Gataevs, on which a corresponding court decision had been made, were first answered by the Public Prosecutor that she could not return the things as she did not know the Gataevs' whereabouts and whether they were alive at all. And when it was reliably established that both spouses are alive and in Finland, she (Public Prosecutor) again refused to enforce the decision of the Kaunas City Court to return the confiscated belongings, this time saying that the Gataevs had allegedly absconded," said Chelysheva.

In her opinion, the level of public support that the Gataevs now have not only in Finland, but also in Lithuania, is the factor, which hampers the Supreme Court of Lithuania to make a decision.

The facts that had been earlier presented to the court evidence that the Gataevs had been initially exposed to persecutions by the state security police of Lithuania, that their trial was not transparent, and that witnesses were pressed and affected by the prosecutor's office and state security police, Ms Chelysheva has added.

However at present, as the rights defender continued, the situation is worsened by poor health condition both of Khadizhat and Malik. "Now, the Gataevs are defended by the doctors who supervise them in prison," she said.

In 1997 in Grozny, the spouses founded a non-commercial organization "Own Family"; it was engaged in helping Chechen orphans. Having moved to Lithuania, the Gataevs brought with them not only their own children, but also about ten adopted orphans. In Lithuania, they were sentenced to imprisonment in particular for cruel treatment of the kids. The spouses believe that the charges against them were forged.

On January 22, a Gataevs' foster daughter stated at a press conference in Helsinki that she had stood against her adoptive parents under the pressure of Lithuanian special agencies.