Swedish Supreme Court rejects Turkiye’s extradition request

The Swedish Supreme Court has stopped the extradition of a man Turkiye says is a senior member of the Gulenist movement, Anadolu reported local media outlets saying.

The court blocked the extradition request for Yilmaz Aytan, who ran the Gulan organisation’s schools in Afghanistan.

The extradion is part of the deal that Sweden signed with Turkiye to stop Ankara blocking Stockholm’s request to join NATO. Turkiye had said its security concerns must be taken into account prior to Finland and Sweden ascending to the military alliance.

Forty-eight-year-old Aytan has been residing in Sweden since 2018, where he applied for asylum and obtained a permanent residence permit to escape the campaign launched against the Gulen movement in Turkiye, according to the Swedish media.

The Swedish daily Dagens Juridik reported on Friday that the extradition of Aytan was stopped by the Supreme Court, which ruled that his involvement in the Gulen movement did not constitute crimes in Sweden.

READ: Biden’s ‘Jerusalem Declaration’ is no direct path to ‘robust regional infrastructure’

Turkish authorities have, however, said that Aytan is among the most senior members of the organisation, which it deems a terror group which Ankara says was behind the 2016 failed coup attempt in which 251 people were killed.

The Turkish Justice Ministry has filed a request with Sweden to extradite Aytan for the crime of “forming/leading an armed terrorist organisation”.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned yesterday that Ankara can still “freeze” Sweden and Finland’s accession to NATO unless they meet Ankara’s security demands.