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Russia

The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right, but I shall not talk about those issues because I want to discuss extradition and I have only a few minutes left. Only last week, the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation upheld a law requiring that political parties must have a minimum of 50,000 members to be allowed by the federal registration service to take part in elections. That will close down several political parties in Russia—yet again we see human rights being eroded. In its report of last year, Amnesty International referred to systematic torture across every part of the Russian Federation. The use of torture in prisons, police cells and the criminal justice system is one reason why many people there have less confidence than the hon. Member for The Wrekin seems to have in the criminal justice system. British organisations have also suffered. The British Council has been systematically targeted since 2004 for its activities in Russia. The Russian authorities have refused to clarify the council’s legal status, and recently ordered it to close its offices in Yekaterinburg. On top of that, the British ambassador and several other members of the British Embassy staff in Moscow have been systematically harassed by a distressingly named organisation, the pro-Putin youth organisation, Nashi. I am afraid that the Russian authorities have been very reluctant to intervene. We should be standing by our ambassador. I come to my main point. The hon. Member for The Wrekin makes a moral equivalence—I have heard him do this twice—between the 21 extradition requests that Russia has made to the UK and the one that we have outstanding regarding Mr. Lugovoi. That is entirely inappropriate. If he were to read any of the proceedings, as I have—they were all considered in this country on an entirely independent basis by the same judge, Judge Timothy Workman—he would realise that the basis of the Russians’ extradition cases are extremely weak. The hon. Gentleman cited 21 cases, which must include that of Akhmed Zakayev. Judge Workman said of that case:"““I…find as a fact that the Russian Government are seeking extradition for purposes of prosecuting Mr Zakayev on account of his nationality and his political opinions.””" That is something that we would never countenance. In 2005, in the case of two former Yukos executives, Dmitry Maruev and Natalia Chernysheva, Judge Workman said that it would be unsafe to extradite the pair because in their dealing with the case"““there is a substantial risk that the judges of the Moscow City Court would succumb to political interference””." That is another fundamental reason why it would be impossible for us to extradite. In the case of Mr. Alexander Temerko, Judge Workman said:"““I am satisfied that the request for Mr Temerko’s extradition is in fact made for the purpose of prosecuting or punishing him for his political opinions. I am satisfied that, if he were extradited, he would be prejudiced at his trial and punished or detained by reasons of his political opinions.””" That is another reason why there is no moral equivalence between the extradition requests from Russia and the one that we have made.