Sweden to extradite man convicted of drug trafficking in Türkiye

By Atila Altuntas

STOCKHOLM (AA) – The Swedish government on Monday decided to extradite a man who was convicted of drug offenses in Türkiye in 2013 and has been living in Sweden for five years.

Ashraf Ahmed, the president of the legal board of the Justice Ministry, told Swedish state television SVT that the Supreme Court decided to extradite the 35-year-old man to Türkiye in May and the government approved the court decision.

The man, according to Aftonbladet newspaper, demanded that he should not be extradited to Türkiye, citing his support for the PKK terrorist group and downloading of ByLock, the encrypted messaging app of the Fethullah Terrorist Organization (FETO), the group behind the July 15, 2016 defeated coup in Türkiye.

He was sentenced to more than four years in prison in Türkiye in 2013 for carrying a bag containing drugs.

After he was released from prison in Türkiye on parole, the man travelled to Sweden and was arrested there in August 2022 upon the request of the Turkish prosecutors.

Soon after Russia started war in Ukraine in February 2022, both Sweden and Finland formally applied to join the alliance in May last year. However, only Finland, which shares a long border with Russia, managed to join NATO in April.

Sweden now hopes to join the military alliance during a NATO summit in Lithuania in July but Türkiye – a NATO member for more than 70 years – voiced objections, accusing it of tolerating and even supporting terrorist groups, including the PKK and FETO.

*Writing by Aysu Bicer in London