Sweden proceeds with the first extradition to Turkey after agreement on NATO membership
Sweden’s government has decided to extradite a man to Turkey who was convicted of fraud. SVT News reported. It will be the first case of extradition since Turkey demanded the deportation of several people in return for supporting Sweden’s NATO application. Turkey agreed to support Finland and Sweden’s NATO membership after weeks of negotiations between the three nations.
Earlier, Turkey had opposed Sweden and Finland’s Nato bid and accused Helsinki and Stockholm of supporting the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, which Ankara sees as a “terrorist organization”. Sweden’s Minister of Justice Morgan Johansson called the extradition of the man “a normal routine matter”, according to SVT Nyheter’s report. Johansson said that the man is convicted of fraud crimes in Turkey in 2013 and 2016 and Sweden had received the extradition request in 2021.
Sweden’s Minister of Justice Morgan Johansson stated that the case has been analyzed by the Supreme Court and that there are no obstacles to deporting the man to Turkey to serve the sentence. According to the news report, the 35-year-old man has been convicted in Turkey’s Supreme Court in 2013 and 2016 for several counts of the crime of bank and credit card abuse and sentenced to 14 years in prison. According to information, the man has been in custody in Sweden since the end of 2021 due to the extradition case. The man has denied the crime and claimed that he was wrongly convicted.
Turkey not to support Sweden’s NATO bid until it “keeps its word”: Erdogan
Earlier this week, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that Finland and Sweden’s accession to NATO will not be supported by Ankara unless both nations meet their commitments to fight terrorism, PAW reported. At a meeting with Turkish ambassadors in foreign countries, Erdogan said that Turkey has a “clear and strong position” regarding Sweden and Finland. He claimed that the countries where members of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party [PKK] “converting freely on the streets is harmful to the alliance’s values,” according to the TASS report.
Erdogan stressed that Turkey will not support Finland and Sweden’s membership in the military alliance until both Nordic countries “keep their word”. Notably, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan together with his Finnish counterpart Sauli Niinisto and Swedish Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson had reached a trilateral memorandum to address Turkey’s legitimate security concerns, which paved the way for Nordic countries’ NATO membership during the Madrid summit in June.