Overview
Belarus is neither a member of the Council of Europe nor a party to the European Convention on Extradition. There is no bilateral extradition treaty between Germany and Belarus. Mutual legal assistance therefore proceeds on a non-treaty basis under the provisions of the IRG.
Since the suppression of the protests against the 2020 presidential election, the country's political support for Russia in the war in Ukraine, and the documented, ongoing human-rights violations, extradition in practice from Germany to Belarus has come to a near standstill. In 2021, according to figures from the Federal Ministry of Justice, none of five requests from Belarus was granted.
Belarusian extradition requests carry particular weight because Belarus is the only European country that still de facto carries out the death penalty. Section 8 IRG thus becomes the central point of review for every Belarusian request.
Legal basis
Extradition to Belarus is governed exclusively by the provisions of the IRG, in particular Sections 1 ff., 8, 73 IRG. In the absence of any binding obligation under international law — Belarus was never a party to the European Convention on Extradition and is not a contracting state to the ECHR — the strictest protective provisions of non-treaty extradition relations apply.
Domestic decisions: in several decisions on Belarusian requests (including 12 Ausl 33/08) the Higher Regional Court of Dresden has confirmed that extradition is in principle admissible where there is an assurance that the death penalty will not be carried out, while setting high requirements for the reliability of that assurance. The Higher Regional Court of Hamm and the Kammergericht Berlin have, in further decisions, highlighted detention conditions as a critical factor.
In 2019 the Federal Constitutional Court stopped, by interim injunction, an extradition to Belarus that the Higher Regional Court of Frankfurt had initially declared admissible; the question whether the assured cell sizes of in some cases only 2–2.5 m² meet the requirements of Article 3 ECHR was regarded as requiring constitutional clarification.
Country-specific issues in Belarus
The central country-specific point is the death penalty. Belarus is the only European state that retains the death penalty in its criminal code and, in individual cases, also carries it out — most recently in a documented case in 2021. Offenses punishable by death include high treason, terrorism and certain categories of murder. In March 2022 the scope of the death penalty was even extended to certain cases of attempted terrorist acts.
Politically motivated criminal prosecution has been systematically observed in Belarus since 2020. Reports by Memorial, Amnesty International and the OSCE Moscow Mechanism document torture, enforced disappearances and political show trials. Every Belarusian alert must therefore be reviewed for a possible political background (Section 6(2) IRG).
Under the decision-making practice of the German Higher Regional Courts and of the Federal Constitutional Court, assurances given by the Belarusian General Public Prosecutor's Office can now be regarded as reliable only to a limited extent. As early as 2018, the Higher Regional Court of Munich (1 AR 26/18) found that an assurance of humane detention conditions, where the cell size was at the same time stated to be 2–2.5 m², does not meet the requirements of Article 3 ECHR.
Detention conditions and the human-rights review
According to the assessment of international human-rights organizations, the detention conditions in Belarusian remand and penal institutions are structurally deficient. Overcrowding, inadequate medical care, solitary confinement and documented practices of torture constitute regular bars to extradition under Section 73 IRG.
As early as 2008, the Higher Regional Court of Zweibrücken found that extradition could not take place „on account of the continuing deficiencies in the Republic of Belarus with regard to the fairness of criminal proceedings and the human-rights-compliant treatment of prisoners“. Since 2020, according to consistent reports, the situation has deteriorated further.
For German extradition proceedings it follows that, in almost every case, Belarusian requests are subject to an individual review under Section 73 IRG — and that, in practice, extradition regularly fails on that ground.
Lines of defense
The defense in Belarusian extradition proceedings follows a clear pattern:
- Section 8 IRG (death penalty): the core point of review. Belarusian assurances must be examined for their reliability — in practice often untenable.
- Section 73 IRG / Article 3 ECHR standards (detention conditions, torture): submission of current reports from Amnesty, Memorial and UN special rapporteurs. An assurance of cell sizes below 4 m² is inadequate per se.
- Section 6(2) IRG (political persecution): regularly applicable in proceedings connected to the 2020 protests, the opposition or the war in Ukraine.
- Article 6 ECHR standards (fair trial): the systemic deficiencies of the Belarusian judiciary after 2020 are comprehensively documented.
- Interpol deletion: Red Notices from Belarus are promising targets for a complaint to the CCF. Belarusian alerts have been reviewed considerably more critically by Interpol since 2020.
- Constitutional complaint: where the OLG declares extradition admissible, a constitutional complaint with an urgent application under Section 32 BVerfGG is the standard step; the prospects of success are high in carefully prepared proceedings.
Legal representation in Belarusian extradition proceedings
An extradition case is a specialized mutual-legal-assistance procedure that goes beyond classic criminal defense. Engaging a defense lawyer specialized in extradition law at an early stage is regularly decisive — not only after the formal extradition arrest warrant has been issued, but already from the moment of an arrest based on an Interpol notice, an SIS alert or a European Arrest Warrant.
As a Certified Specialist in Criminal Law with a focus on extradition law, I advise and represent affected persons nationwide before the competent Higher Regional Courts and in constitutional complaint proceedings before the Federal Constitutional Court.