Azerbaijan, France
Russian request complicates French-Azerbaijani spy skirmish

While Azerbaijan has again extended the detention of French citizen Martin Ryan, whom it accuses of spying for the French external intelligence agency, the DGSE (IO, 17/09/24), a French court is examining the case of an Azerbaijani citizen who took refuge in France and is presented as a former collaborator of the Baku domestic intelligence service, the DTX. More specifically, the French magistrates are examining a request from Russia for his extradition.

According to an 11 September Paris court of appeals decree, which Intelligence Online has read, the Russian public prosecutor sent a formal request for extradition of the individual to the French ministry of justice on 21 May. The request was transferred by Interpol's office in Moscow, then via a diplomatic note from the Russian embassy in Paris on 29 May.

Playing for time

The former DTX collaborator, who goes by the name of Ramazan Y. but also has a passport under the name of Rovshan A., had already been taken into custody ready for extradition by the French authorities in April on the grounds that Interpol had issued a red notice against him in 2019, also at Russia's request (IO, 27/05/24).

Russia's solicitation has left the French public prosecutor in a bind: either accept its demands or refuse the extradition. The 11 September decree stresses the "political nature of the extradition request". Ramazan Y.'s defence team has asserted that Russia's move could have been made "at the request of the Azerbaijani authorities, for which he previously worked as an intelligence officer".

The Paris court of appeals chose to present an additional option to ask for further information from the Russian prosecutor about the grounds for its extradition request. That option will lead to another hearing on 27 November.

Meeting with the DGSI

Ramazan Y., who indicated that the "intelligence services of the Republic of Azerbaijan had taken steps to change his identity in 2019 for confidential reasons," has been seeking asylum in France since October last year. The French Office for the Protection of Refugees and Stateless People (OFPRA) rejected his application, which is now pending with the French National Court of Asylum. He was banned from entering and staying in France on 9 August 2023, a decision the Rouen administrative court suspended on the following 24 October. 

In its decision, the Rouen court wrote that Ramazan Y. had indicated he was "recruited by the Azerbaijani secret services and sent to Europe to repress and eliminate Internet blogger opponents to the regime". However, he added that he did not obey those instructions and, on the contrary, warned several opposition figures of the risks they faced, according to his account. 

Ramazan Y. shared information about the international tracking of political opponents with investigators of a territorial service of the French domestic intelligence service, the DGSI, in late January (IO, 23/02/24). Several opponents to Ilham Aliyev's regime have sought refuge in France, including blogger Mahammad Mirzali, who is living in Nantes under permanent police surveillance and has already survived five assassination attempts. 

Accusations of terrorism

The primary grounds for the French authorities' refusal of his entry into France in August last year was an accusation that he belonged to "a group affiliated with the terrorist organisation Daesh," without further explanation. A note that the French administrative security investigations service, the SNEAS, sent OFPRA on 15 May, which we have seen, presented Ramazan Y. as "known for his relations with the radical Islamist movement, for his radical ideological beliefs and for his affiliation with the terrorist organisation Daesh". 

Those accusations reiterate those indicated in the Interpol red notice issued at Russia's behest. Moscow's request for extradition is based on a 2019 investigation conducted by the police and an antenna of the Russian domestic intelligence service, the FSB, in Makhachkala, capital of the Dagestan region. That investigation had looked into accusations of "promotion of terrorist activities" and "participation in the activities of a terrorist organisation" in Russia between 2009 and 2016, with "the Islamic State group," among other organisations.

The French court of appeal deemed the information provided by the Russian authorities "largely incomplete," particularly with regard to the "qualification as terrorist of certain groups" mentioned alongside Daesh (namely the "Congress of the Peoples of Ichkeria and Dagestan" and "Supreme Military Majlisul Shura of the United Forces of the Mujahideen of the Caucasus") and the date and nature of some of the accusations. Dagestan, a majority Muslim region next to Chechnya and close to Georgia and Azerbaijan, is frequently kept under close surveillance and monitored for terrorism activities by the Russian authorities.