The international police agency Interpol has deleted the Red Notice against Akbar Abdullaev and removed related information from its organization’s database, confirming once and for all the unlawfulness of the imprisonment in Kyiv of the politically persecuted Abdullaev.
On Jan. 14, the 34 year-old nephew of the late Uzbek President Islam Karimov was arrested upon his arrival in Kyiv, based on an Interpol Red Notice tender, initiated by Uzbekistan, and has since then been held in custody in Kyiv.
Interpol’s decision, published in a letter by Interpol’s General Secretariat and dated May 5, has wide-ranging legal and political consequences.
With the stroke of a pen, the legal basis for the extradition request by Uzbekistan against Abdullaev is extinguished. Consequently, the extradition proceedings in Ukraine are immediately rendered null and void. Without any legal basis for detaining Abdullaev, Ukraine must release him from extradition custody – clearing his name and restoring his rights.
The charges brought by Uzbekistan against Abdullaev were completely fabricated and constitute a clear breach of the Interpol Red Notice System.
According to Uzbek authorities, over a six-year period, Abdullaev allegedly stole a total of circa 65,000 road tankers with gas and other refinery products from an Uzbekistan refinery in Fergana.
In order to do so, however, he would have had to send a fully-loaded tanker with 20 tons of diesel or gas across the border to Kazakhstan – an 8-hour trip – every 1.2 hours without interruption, day and night, seven days a week, 24 hours a day, for six years, without being noticed. During the period in question, the American multinational oil concern Texaco was the majority owner of the refinery. In addition to the alleged theft being logistically and physically impossible, it is inconceivable that Texaco would not have noticed, either on its balance sheet or in fact, that a theft of such proportions had taken place.
For the past few months, Interpol has carefully reviewed the evidence for Abdullaev’s innocence and looked into violations of its own Red Notice System and has come to the conclusion that the facts advanced in support of the charges brought against Abdullaev were politically motivated. Hence the Red Notice was issued in violation of Article 3 of Interpol’s Constitution and thus invalid; as a result, it has been deleted.
The Ukraine attorney general’s office, in contrast to Interpol, obviously failed to examine whether the facts upon which the charges against Abdullaev were based, were at all plausible. On the contrary, the attorney general’s office consistently ignored all the facts, making more than likely the charges of political prosecution.
Politically, this judgment is a triumph for international justice and a warning to rogue states like Uzbekistan and the countries that do their bidding.
Given the indignities that Abdullaev has already suffered, both at the hands of Uzbek authorities and the Ukraine judiciary, this Interpol decision finally provides him and his supporters some measure of poetic justice. Interpol’s decision makes absolutely clear that in the case of Abdullaev any form of mutual legal assistance with Uzbekistan is illegal. Consequently, Ukraine must immediately release Abdullaev from prison, if it wants to avoid being a henchman of the torture state of Uzbekistan.
