Albanian court refused to extradite 34-year-old Svetlana Timofeeva, a Russian self-proclaimed blogger who was arrested last August after filming an abandoned military base. She also faces similar charges in Moscow.
Albanian Court Decides Not to Extradite the Russian Blogger After Being Arrest for Filming a Military Base (Photo: Yahoo Sport UK)
Albanian Court Decides Not to Extradite the Russian Blogger
Svetlana Timofeeva, a 34-year-old Russian Blogger was arrested last August 2o22 after filming an abandoned military base as content for her blog. She was arrested together with other Russian and Ukrainian citizens.
Judge Elis Dine announced in the ruling that ‘they refuse to accept the request from Russian authorities to grant an extradition from the Republic of Albania to the Russia Federation of the Russian citizen Svetlana Timofeeva’.
Timofeeva has denied the charges against her of espionage and explained that her intention in filming the abandoned military base is to make content for her blog showing the Cold War era and that there is no sign of trespassing.
During the court ruling, they decided to extradite Timofeeva, but later changed their decision.
Albania is in an alliance with most European countries and joined European Union in imposing sanctions on Russia for invading Ukraine.
Timofeeva’s lawyer Fatmir Lushi said in an interview after the announcement of not granting her extradition, “The Russian state is a country that does not guarantee any basic human rights.” Her lawyer also said the case of Svetlana was a made-up case.
