CCPR/C/123/D/2189/2012 Annex Individual opinion of José Santos Pais (dissenting) 1. I regret not being able to share the Committee’s decision, according to which the State party violated the author’s rights under article 9 of the Covenant. The author was arrested on 5 November 2011 in the Russian Federation, pursuant to an international search warrant issued for him by Uzbekistan. His detention pending extradition was ordered by the Office of the Prosecutor of the Presnenskiy district, Moscow, on 7 November 2011, with reference to the decision of the Yakkasaray district court, Tashkent, of 23 February 2011 (see paragraphs 2.2 and 9.7 above). On 9 December 2011, the Office of the Uzbek Prosecutor General requested the author’s extradition on charges of fraud (see paragrah 2.3 above), to “bring him to criminal responsibility” (see article 56 (2) of the Minsk Convention on Legal Assistance and Legal Relations in Civil, Family and Criminal Matters). 2. On 28 December 2011, the Presnesnskiy district prosecutor requested that the author’s detention be extended for six months, until 5 May 2012, a request granted the same day by the Presnenskiy district court and upheld on 4 July 2012 by the Moscow city court. On 13 February 2012, the district court extended the author’s detention for another six months, until 5 November 2012, a decision upheld by the Moscow city court on 4 July 2012. On 30 March 2012, therefore well within the last extension of the detention, the Office of the Russian Prosecutor General granted the extradition request, later confirmed by the Supreme Court on 13 August 2012 (see paragraph 2.3 above). The author was extradited on 1 October 2012 (see paragraph 2.6 above). 3. The author’s detention pending extradition was initially ordered by the district prosecutor (see article 61 of the Minsk Convention), therefore before the extradition request was formally presented by the Uzbek authorities on 9 December 2011. According to the decision of the Committee (see paragraph 9.7 above), the extradition request was not received within one month following the author’s detention but exceeded it by two days, thus violating article 61 of the Minsk Convention. 4. The Russian courts, including the Supreme Court, held however that the extradition request and the decision to extradite were both in compliance with the Minsk Convention and the Code of Criminal Procedure (see article 1 (3)). In fact, the Code allows for issuance by a prosecutor of a measure of restriction pending extradition, such as taking a person into custody, without confirmation by a court (see articles 91, 92, 97 (2) 108 and 466 (2)), and addresses further legal procedures of execution of extradition requested by a foreign State in conformity with an international treaty (see article 462), which in the present case is the Minsk Convention. 5. However, under article 463 (6): “In the course of the judicial proceedings the court shall not discuss the questions concerning the guilt of the person who has filed the complaint, but shall restrict itself to checking the correspondence between the decision on the extradition of the given person and the legislation and the international treaties of the Russian Federation” (see paragraph 6.1 above). The reasoning of the Committee that the authorities provided no grounds that would justify the extension of his detention, such as the substantiation of exceptional complexity of the criminal charges against him (see paragraph 9.9 above) does not therefore take into account either applicable Russian domestic provisions or the Minsk Convention (articles 56, 57 and 60), which foresee only a formal assessment of the criteria for granting detention pending extradition. In addition, the Committee’s decision does not take into consideration the relevant international instruments on mutual legal assistance and extradition, based on the principles of international cooperation and respect for the domestic courts and jurisdiction of other countries, in line with the Russian Code of Criminal Procedure, extradition being granted or refused according to formal criteria, not substantive ones. 6. International instruments on extradition, such as the Model Treaty on Extradition, refer further to the need to observe the law of the requested State (see article 10 (1): “the requested State shall deal with the request for extradition pursuant to procedures provided 10