Kurdish refugee still awaiting release in Croatian jail

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – A Kurdish refugee from Turkey who has been living in Europe for 13 years is expected to be released from custody in Croatia soon after an extradition request by Turkey was recently quashed, according to news reports.

Nurettin Oral, a Kurd from Turkey who allegedly fled the country because of political persecution, was arrested over a year ago and is being held in the Osijek prison in Croatia, Croatian news outlet Hina reported. His family, however, is in Switzerland where Oral has been granted asylum.

“According to the Dublin and Schengen rules, only Switzerland can decide on Oral’s extradition and no other country,” the president of the Constitutional Court in Croatia, Miroslav Separovic, said.

Oral was detained after Turkey filed an extradition request accusing the would-be refugee of being a member of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which Ankara and its NATO allies view as a terrorist organization.

Charges were brought against Oral for “connections with various terrorist activities and the murder of many civilians and security officers in Turkey and Iraq,” the Turkey Embassy in Croatia told Hina.

They also accused Oral of “attempting to secede a part of Turkish territory.”

“If he is innocent, he should go to Turkey and justify his claims before the court,” Turkish ambassador to Croatia Mustafa Babur Hizlan said.

Switzerland granted Oral asylum for fear of political persecution 13 years ago. He encountered issues on the Croatian border after visiting Macedonia for a wedding, where Interpol intercepted him.

In January, his wife warned the political situation in Turkey was unsafe for Oral. “There is no democracy, he will go to jail for 15, 20 years,” she told Dnevnik news.

A massive, ongoing crackdown on the Kurdish movement began in late 2016 with the arrest of high-profile politicians including the People’s Democratic Party’s (HDP) former Co-leader Selahattin Demirtas, and has included attempts to extradite other Kurdish figures, such as Salih Muslim, a senior member of the ruling council of Syria’s northeast Kurdish areas.

Editing by Karzan Sulaivany