Türkiye jails PKK terrorist extradited from Sweden

ISTANBUL

Turkish court on Dec. 3 jailed a convicted member of PKK terrorist organization a day after Sweden extradited him, state media reported.

After Russia invaded Ukraine, Finland and Sweden in May dropped decades of military non-alignment and sought to join NATO. That requires a consensus within the U.S.-led defence alliance, but Türkiye and Hungary have so far not ratified their membership.

Türkiye has demanded the Nordic countries take a tougher stance on PKK and its affiliate in Syria, YPG.

Mahmut Tat was sentenced to more than six years in jail over being a member of the PKK in Türkiye. He fled to Sweden in 2015, but Stockholm rejected his asylum request.

Tat arrived in Istanbul on Dec. 2 night after Sweden detained and extradited him, local news agencies reported. Turkish police detained him soon after arriving at Istanbul airport and referred him to a court on Dec. 3, which sent him to jail.

Türkiye has accused Finland and Sweden in particular of providing a safe haven for PKK terrorists, and held back on ratifying their NATO bids despite an agreement in Madrid in June. Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu held trilateral talks with his Swedish and Finnish counterparts on the margins of a NATO meeting in Bucharest this week.

“The statements (coming out of Sweden) are good, the determination is good, but we need to see concrete steps,” Çavuşoğlu said. Ankara has said it expects Stockholm to take action on issues including the extradition of criminals and freezing of terror assets.

Swedish Migration Minister Maria Malmer Stenergard meanwhile stressed that Tat’s extradition was a decision taken by the Scandinavian country’s migration board and courts, and not by the government.

“This is an extradition case where an individual has had his asylum application rejected,” Malmer Stenergard told Swedish broadcaster SVT, adding: “The government has no role in this process that concerns reviews of asylum applications.”

“That means neither the government nor an individual cabinet minister can intervene or influence relevant authori-ties or courts in their handling of individual cases,” she said.

Tat’s former lawyer in Sweden criticised the decision to extradite him.