Berik Asylov on the development of international relations in the criminal law sphere and the fight against crime
We are continuously working to expand and strengthen international legal cooperation in the field of combating crime, the capture and delivery of wanted persons from abroad, and the return of illegally withdrawn assets.
It should be borne in mind that even if a person was detained through Interpol at our request as part of an international search, they will not simply be extradited. To do this, you need to go through a range of procedures in compliance with foreign legislation, justify the socially dangerous nature of the act for both sides, prove the involvement of the requested person in it and inform the foreign partner about it, while observing diplomatic etiquette.
The extradition of a person who has committed a crime in our country and is hiding abroad is not an easy task. To solve it, our employee must know international humanitarian law, all the covenants, conventions and documents of the United Nations and other international organizations on extradition and human rights protection. This is without taking into account the requirement of mandatory knowledge of several languages, and I will say more – languages representing different ethnolinguistic groups.
If we do not have a bilateral agreement with the country where the fugitive is located or this State is not a party to a multilateral convention, then cooperation can be carried out on the basis of the principle of reciprocity.
This principle is enshrined in our CPC. It consists in the obligation to consider in the future the request of that country for the provision of the same type of legal assistance. That is, reciprocity assumes that if a similar situation arises, we will also issue them at their request. There are such examples in our practice.
So, in the absence of an agreement, we managed to achieve the extradition of wanted persons from Germany, Sweden and other countries.
Last year, Kazakhstan signed a total of 16 interstate agreements prepared by government agencies, nine of them by the Prosecutor General's Office. Relevant international acts have been signed with Morocco, Peru, Qatar, Cyprus and Switzerland. In total, 82 agreements have been concluded with 37 countries over the years of independence, including with such states as the United Kingdom, the United States, China, Brazil, India, Saudi Arabia, Spain, Italy, France and others.
In our contractual work, we focus on the countries that are most attractive for tourism, as well as on the states where "fugitives" may be hiding and where stolen assets may be transferred.
Thanks to close cooperation with our foreign colleagues, over the past year we have been issued 67 wanted persons who are accused of murder, drug crimes, large-scale fraud, financial pyramid schemes and other serious acts. For comparison, in 2023, we were given 55 wanted criminals. This is good progress.
I will give specific examples. The leader of a transnational criminal group, from whom more than a ton of psychotropic substances were seized, was extradited from Poland. Spain has extradited the organizer of the financial pyramid scheme, who deceived more than 800 citizens in the amount of over a billion tenge.
In turn, we have also extradited twice as many wanted persons to other countries (213 against 120 in 2023).
In general, work on strengthening cooperation with foreign colleagues will continue.
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