AKIPRESS.COM - On 1 July 2016, Olim Ochilov, a 27-year-old Uzbekistani asylum seeker, was forcibly returned from Russia to Uzbekistan in blatant disregard of interim measures by the European Court of Human Rights (the European Court), reports Amnesty International in press release.

On 28 June 2016, the European Court issued Rule 39 interim measures on Olim Ochilov’s case to stop his forcible return to Uzbekistan, where he is at the real risk of torture. Olim Ochilov came from Uzbekistan to Russia as a labour migrant in July 2012. Two years later, on 24 November 2014, Moscow Regional Court sentenced him to three years in prison for his alleged involvement in extremist activities in Russia. 2 Olim Ochilov served his sentence in a prison colony in Arhangelsk Region in north-western Russia, more than 1,200 km away from Moscow.

On 2 October 2015, while Olim Ochilov was serving his sentence, the Russian Ministry of Justice declared his stay in Russia “undesirable”. 3 Olim Ochilov was notified of the Ministry of Justice instruction and that he would need to leave Russia upon his release from the penal colony.

On 16 May 2016, the Russian Federal Migration Service (FMS) ordered Olim Ochilov’s deportation on the basis of the decision by the Ministry of Justice. On 26 May 2016, Olim Ochilov appealed against the deportation order to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, but he hasn’t received a response to date. Olim Ochilov had earlier applied for refugee status, but his application was denied.

Olim Ochilov managed to contact refugee lawyers in Moscow from the penal colony because he feared a possible forcible return to Uzbekistan, where he would be at real risk of torture and other ill-treatment. His lawyers appealed to the European Court for interim measures and, on 28 June 2016, the European Court issued an order for interim measures to stop Olim Ochilov being forcibly returned to Uzbekistan.

On 30 June 2016, his scheduled release date, Olim Ochilov was lead out of the penal colony by Russian law enforcement officers and transferred to the airport in Arhangelsk in order to be deported to Uzbekistan via Moscow. On the same day, Olim Ochilov’s legal representatives informed the Russian authorities that the European Court had issued interim measures.

However, the Russian authorities ignored the European Court’s decision, in direct violation of their legal obligations. In a letter that Olim Ochilov’s Russian lawyers received in response to the notification about the ECtHR Rule 39 interim measures, the police wrote that they could not prevent his deportation because by the time the details of his flight had been “clarified” and by the time police had arrived at the departure gate “the plane’s doors had been locked in preparation for take-off”. They further explained that Olim Ochilov had checked in on an “Uzbekistan Airways” flight to Urgench, western Uzbekistan, on 1 July and boarded the plane of his own accord before they could intervene.

Olim Ochilov’s whereabouts in Uzbekistan are currently unknown. The Uzbekistani authorities have accused him of “anti-state activities”, which puts him at a particular risk of torture and other ill-treatment, as well as unfair trial, in Uzbekistan.

On 13 June 2013 the Uzbekistani authorities accused Olim Ochilov of “anti-state activities” and alleged that he had participated in the activities of the so-called Islamic Movement of Turkestan. 5 They claimed that he had been involved in such activities since his arrival in Russia in 2012. The same day, he was put on a wanted list. According to the Uzbekistani authorities, Olim Ochilov called for the “overthrow of the constitutional order” in Uzbekistan, publicly criticised the current Uzbekistani government, distributed extremist literature banned in Uzbekistan, gave speeches in Russia to other labour migrants from Uzbekistan calling on them to travel to special “subversive–terrorist training camps” in order to undergo military training.

Olim Ochilov was declared a criminal suspect under articles Article 155 “Terrorism”; Article 159 “Attempts to overthrow the constitutional order of the Republic of Uzbekistan”; Article 223 “Illegal exit from or entry in Republic of Uzbekistan”; Article 244-1 “Production and dissemination of materials containing a threat to public security and public order”; Article 244-2 “Establishment, direction of or participation in religious extremist, separatist, fundamentalist or other banned organizations” of the Criminal Code of Uzbekistan.

On 15 June 2013, the Karshi city Criminal Court in southern Uzbekistan sanctioned his arrest.

Hundreds of asylum-seekers, refugees and labour migrants have been abducted or forcibly returned from Russia to Uzbekistan since 2014 in blatant violation of Russia’s international human rights obligations. The absolute ban on torture and other ill-treatment includes the prohibition against returning or transferring a person to any country where he or she is at real risk of such abuse. Russia is a state party to several treaties that prohibit such transfers, but has flagrantly and consistently flouted its human rights commitments by sending people back to Uzbekistan where they have subsequently suffered appalling physical and psychological harm at the hands of state authorities and their agents.