Turkey renews extradition requests with Finland, Sweden

Turkey on Wednesday renewed extradition requests of individuals it deems terrorists from Sweden and Finland in accordance with a deal over the Nordic nations' NATO membership bids, Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag said, in a televised interview with Haber Global TV. 

Turkey had opposed the two countries' bids over what it called support for people it deems terrorists, but lifted its embargo ahead of a NATO Summit in Madrid and signed a trilateral memorandum with the two NATO hopefuls.

"Within the framework of the agreement, a monitoring committee was established. Accordingly, today we have renewed some requests that were rejected before, and reminded them of some requests that were not responded to," Bozdag said.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan claimed last week that Sweden promised to extradite 73 people to Turkey. 

"They will be handed over to us, they have promised and that promise is in the documentation," he said.

At least 19 people living in Sweden that Turkey wants extradited have already been tried and denied extradition, and a top court will not reexamine those cases, Sweden’s Dagens Nyheter newspaper reported on Monday. 

“We can not sit down and go through previous cases that have already been decided,” said Anders Eka, President of Sweden’s Supreme Court, DN reported. 

Sweden’s Supreme Court examines any request for extradition and determines if there is an obstacle, and the government must abide. If the court sees any obstacles then the person must not be handed over, said Anders Eka, according to DN

Finland on the other hand, expressed clearly that it did not discuss the extradition of any specific individuals or groups of people during negotiations at the NATO summit in Madrid.