Overview
Extraditions between Germany and the Russian Federation have entered an exceptional legal and practical situation since the breach of international law that followed the Russian attack on Ukraine. Russia was excluded from the Council of Europe on 16 March 2022 by decision of the organization's Committee of Ministers; with effect from 16 September 2022, Russia's membership of the European Convention on Human Rights also ended.
Practical cooperation in extradition matters has effectively come to a standstill since then. Russian extradition requests are, as a rule, refused. Even so, engaging with Russian requests remains legally relevant: existing requests dating from before February 2022 are still being processed, and Russian Interpol alerts as well as alerts routed through third states continue to pose a significant problem for those affected.
Defense in Russia-related extradition proceedings therefore requires two parallel strategies: fending off the extradition request itself, and systematically challenging the underlying Interpol alert.
Legal basis
The legal foundations of the German–Russian relationship have been split since 2022. Formally, the Russian Federation remains a party to the European Convention on Extradition of 13 December 1957 (ECE), because it is an open convention under Article 30 ECE in which non-members of the Council of Europe may also participate. Russia has not so far given notice of termination under Article 31 ECE.
In substance, however, the ECE is suspended in German–Russian dealings. With the end of Russia's binding obligation under the ECHR on 16 September 2022, the human-rights basis on which the German extradition courts could previously even assess the plausibility of Russian assurances falls away. The requirements under Section 73 IRG (essential principles of the German legal order, ordre public) are, as a rule, no longer met.
Domestically, the Act on International Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters (IRG) applies, in particular Sections 1 ff. and 73 IRG. Russian nationals may in principle be extradited within the scope of Section 2(3) IRG; German nationals are protected by Article 16(2), first sentence, of the Basic Law, and extradition to Russia as a third state is excluded.
Country-specific issues in Russia
In German practice, Russian extradition requests are politically motivated to an above-average degree. Those affected are above all members of the opposition, business people in conflict with the state, journalists and members of ethnic or religious minorities. The independence of the Russian judiciary is not recognized internationally; before its exclusion from the Council of Europe, the ECtHR convicted Russia on numerous occasions of structural violations of the ECHR.
A frequent area of conflict is the return of conscientious objectors and those fleeing mobilization. Dual criminality under Article 2 ECE / Section 3 IRG regularly fails here at the outset, because German military criminal law applies only in the event of defense (Verteidigungsfall).
It should also be noted that many Russian requests are formally submitted by the General Public Prosecutor's Office of the Russian Federation, whose assurances regarding detention conditions and sentencing were already viewed critically under existing case law in the past — and today carry practically no evidentiary value.
Detention conditions and the human-rights review
Detention conditions in Russian pre-trial detention facilities (SIZO) and penal institutions are systematically deficient. As early as 2012, the ECtHR found structural overcrowding and inhuman detention conditions in the pilot judgment in Ananyev and Others v. Russia (no. 42525/07). The situation has not fundamentally improved since then; and with the removal of ECtHR oversight from September 2022, any external review is now also lacking.
For German extradition proceedings, this means that assurances from Russian authorities regarding detention conditions cannot, as a rule, be regarded as sound within the meaning of Section 73 IRG. Demonstrating an impending violation of Article 3 ECHR (even though the ECHR no longer applies to Russia, its substantive standards remain applicable as general principles of the German legal order via Section 73 IRG) is possible in almost every case.
The death penalty has been effectively suspended in Russia by a moratorium since 1996, but it continues to exist. In the current political situation, a resumption cannot be ruled out; Section 8 IRG requires, where there is a risk of its imposition, a reliable assurance that, as matters currently stand, is likely to be very difficult to obtain.
Lines of defense
In practice, the defense against Russian extradition requests rests on several interrelated approaches:
- Political persecution (Section 6(2) IRG, Article 16a of the Basic Law): documentation of a political background to the prosecution, e.g. on the basis of reports by Memorial, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch or the US State Department.
- Human-rights limits (Section 73 IRG in conjunction with Article 3 ECHR standards): inadequate detention conditions, the risk of torture or degrading treatment.
- Lack of dual criminality (Article 2 ECE, Section 3 IRG): in particular in military-service, free-speech, and politically motivated economic offenses.
- Ordre public reservation (Section 73 IRG): violation of essential principles of German law, the right to a fair trial (Article 6 ECHR standards), the presumption of innocence.
- Challenging the Interpol alert: alongside fending off the extradition, a complaint to the CCF should regularly be filed and deletion of the Red Notice pursued. Since 2022, Russian alerts have been scrutinized more critically by Interpol.
- Constitutional complaint: following an unfavorable OLG decision, a constitutional complaint to the Federal Constitutional Court is available; an urgent application under Section 32 BVerfGG accompanies the stay of admissibility.
Legal representation in Russian 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 alert, 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.