No Border Serbia | 24.12.2017
Serbian government announced to send back a Kurdish man from Turkey that has claimed asylum in Serbia. He has been in the country since October 2016, escaping a 15-year long prison sentence in Turkey as a political prisoner. He says that the guilt plea that was the base for his conviction came off under torture. While waiting for his asylum process to be completed he was detained in Serbia for more than a year. Currently he is in a foreigner part of Padinska Skela- prison near Belgrade, even though he is supposed to be placed in the open institution for asylum seekers Banja Koviljača.
On 12 of December the UN Comitee against torture wrote a letter to the ministry of justice, demanding a stop of the extradition process. Two days later the appeal against his extradition was rejected. The minister of justice Nela Kuburović claims the letter of the UN came too late and that C.A was „(…)only arrested here.“ (1) She doesn’t mention the asylum claim. C.A’s lawyer Ana Trkulja was not even informed about the planned extradition of her client, not speaking about the inability of the court to have adequate translations of documents from turkish regarding C.A’s case.