Azerbaijan, Baku, 19 November / Trend corr. K.Zarbaliyeva/ A total of 20 Iranian prisons in Azerbaijan will be extradited to Iran, Zavar Gafarov, the head of the International Cooperation Department of the Justice Ministry, said. Prisoners' extradition will take place by the end of November.
According to Gafarov, 513 foreigners serve their punishments at the Azerbaijani jails and majority of them are Iranian, Russian and Georgian citizens.
"A total of 130 Iranians serve their punishments in Azerbaijan and majority of them has been charged of drugs crime," Gafarov said.
Most of appeals, which the Justice Ministry receives on prisoners' extradition, are connected to Azerbaijani prisoners in Russia. The Head of the Department explains this fact with many number of Azerbaijanis in Russia
There are definite problems with Georgia on prisoners' extradition, Gafarov said.
According to Gafarov, recently, number of the Azerbaijani prisoners, who have been charged of drugs crime, has risen in Russia.
At present, measures are being taken to extradite the Azerbaijani prisoners from Russia by the end of 2008.
A total of 170 Georgian citizens serve punishment in Azerbaijan. There are about 30 Azerbaijani prisoners in Georgia, as well.
"Recently, this process has not been fulfilled with Georgia. Despite prisoners' appeal to serve their punishment in motherland, Georgia agrees neither to extradite Georgian prisoners from Azerbaijan, nor Azerbaijanis from Georgia," Gafarov said.
At present official of the Ministry is on a visit to Georgia and will negotiate on this matter with his Georgian counterparts within the framework of the visit, the Head of the Department said.
The Department is taking measures to examine more than 300 prisoners' extradition issues.
Some 111 Azerbaijani citizens and 39 foreign prisoners appealed to be extradited to their countries within 10 months of 2008. A total of 33 prisoners were received from different countries to serve the rest part of the punishment and 17 foreign prisoners were extradited in 2007.
Seventy-six foreign prisoners in Azerbaijan have been extradited to their countries and cases on 151 Azerbaijani prisoners have been put under consideration since 2005.
There are definite problems in extradition of Azerbaijani prisoners from foreign countries, which do not have borders with Azerbaijan, the Head of the Department said.
It was impossible to extradite Azerbaijani prisoners from Belarus and Ukraine through transit from the Russian territory.
"As Russia has not ratified the Moscow Convention on Prisoners' Extradition, dated 1998, this problem has not yet been solved. As a result, Azerbaijanis' extradition from Russia is realized through airlines through spending great amount of financial means," Gafarov said.
The European Convention on prisoners' extradition has come to power in Russia and transit issues have been regulated in this document, he said.
Justice Ministers of both countries are expected to meet in December to solve this problem and the problem in this field will be solved in 2009.
Azerbaijan has bilateral agreements with Iran, Russia, Georgia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan on prisoners' extradition.
Azerbaijan joined the Moscow Convention on Prisoners' extradition, as well as the European Convention on the same topic.
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