Swedish parliamentarian Kakabaveh: Sweden handed four people to Turkey

Sweden handed 4 people to Turkey after the signing of a memorandum with Turkey at the NATO Summit last month, starting a new era of extraditing political refugees in the country, Swedish parliamentarian Amineh Kakabaveh said in an interview with Rudaw.

Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan claimed that Sweden promised to extradite 73 people to Turkey as part of the agreement and has already delivered 3-4 people, a claim the Swedish government failed to publicly deny.

“They handed over 4 people. This is not propaganda, it is a fact,” Kakabaveh said, adding that she wasn’t satisfied with the Justice minister’s statement that those extradited were not part of the list requested by Turkey. 

“If so, why weren't they extradited before? (The government) must disclose their names.” she said. 

Kakabaveh said that most of the people Turkey defines as “terrorists” are those who had to leave Turkey, Syria and Iran because of their Kurdish, revolutionary and political activities. 

"This is Erdogan's list. I am against the Swedish government's compliance with Turkey's wishes and I made a certain amount of pressure on this. The names on the list are people (Kurds) fighting to save the world against ISIS, they are in Sweden for fear of being killed by ISIS, tortured and thrown into prisons. According to Erdogan’s list, I am also a terrorist.” she said. 

Speaking of her concerns to protect the rights of accused people who have not yet been granted asylum, "I have sent letters to Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch asking them to put this on their agenda," she said.