For Recep Tayep Erdogan, it’s a political victory. A Kurd, accused by Turkey of being a member of the PKK, was expelled from Sweden on Saturday and sent back to Istanbul. The Turkish media, close to the power, explained that the man was presented to a court, before being imprisoned. If this expulsion is to be understood in the context of Sweden’s application for NATO membership, subject to Turkey’s agreement, it seems above all that the Swedish government is in fact benefiting from an administrative decision which pleases in Ankara.
With our correspondent in Stockholm, Carlotta Morteo
Mahmut Tat is the name of this Kurdish man, who should have left Swedish territory on his own a year ago. Indeed, his asylum application, filed in 2015 following his conviction by Turkey to six years in prison for having maintained links with the PKKlinks he has always denied, had been rejected by Sweden.
Like other rejected applicants, not knowing where to go, this Kurd from Turkey had therefore remained in Sweden, where he worked and had rebuilt his life. On November 22, he was checked on the road and arrested, being in an irregular situation. In view of the policy of tougher removals wanted by the new government, the immigration services put him on a plane, with another Turk, heading for Istanbul.
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An administrative expulsion with the air of extradition
On paper, it is therefore an administrative expulsion, and not an extradition that took place. Extradition is governed by a whole set of rules: in particular, it cannot be granted for political and military offenses and it must be approved by the courts: an attorney general, or even the Supreme Court.
Probably because Mahmut Tat was an easy target – neither a refugee, nor a Swedish citizen, and undocumented – Sweden is happy to let Turkey instrumentalize this situation as a victory. Using a legal justification to its opinion, the Swedish government succeeded in satisfying Ankara, which had not even asked for Mahmut Tat in its list of extraditable persons.
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For the Kurdish community in Sweden, which immediately reacted on social networks, this is a very bad signal. They are indignant to see that the immigration services obviously no longer take into account for deportations the fact that the Kurds are oppressed in Turkey and tortured in prison.
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