Sweden rejects Turkey’s request for the extradition of a suspected terrorist
STOCKHOLM
Sweden’s highest court on Monday rejected Turkey’s request for the extradition of a suspected fugitive terrorist group living on Swedish soil.
In a statement, Sweden’s Supreme Court said that in order to grant the extradition request, a suspect must have been sentenced to a year in prison or more, but that the suspect in question, Bulent Kenes, did not meet this requirement.
At a joint press conference last month with Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan urged Sweden to deport Kenes back to Turkey, stressing its importance.
Kenes, former editor-in-chief of the daily newspaper Zaman and suspected member of the Fetullah Terrorist Organization (FETO), lives in Sweden.
In the defeated 2016 coup orchestrated by FETO and its US-based leader Fetullah Gulen, 251 people were killed and 2,734 injured.
In June, Turkey, Finland and Sweden signed a memorandum on the Nordic countries’ applications for NATO membership after four-way talks in Madrid.
The memorandum requires Finland and Sweden to take measures against Turkey’s terrorism concerns, including the extradition of terror suspects, and lifts an arms embargo on Ankara.
In return, Turkey would let the Nordic countries become members of NATO.
However, Ankara has accused Finland and Sweden of not complying with the agreement, as both nations failed to extradite wanted terrorists that Ankara sought.
* Author of Seda Sevencan