CCPR/C/126/D/2989/2017 4.2 On 17 November 2014, a request for the author’s extradition was submitted by the Office of the Prosecutor General of Belarus. On 19 October 2015, the Office of the Prosecutor General of Lithuania sent the request to extradite the author to Belarus to the Vilnius regional court. The author’s extradition case, however, were suspended in view of the ongoing proceedings regarding the author’s request for asylum. On 30 May 2017, after the asylum-related proceedings finished, the Vilnius regional court resumed proceedings, sent a summons to the author and informed his lawyer that the hearing was scheduled for 14 June 2017. In view of the Committee’s request for interim measures dated 12 June 2017, which the author’s counsel presented in the court on 14 June 2017, the Court postponed the hearing to 30 August 2017. 4.3 The State party explains that the administrative proceedings related to the author’s asylum application, the proceedings in courts of general jurisdiction related to his extradition are separate venues and the only link between them is the fact that ongoing asylum proceedings lead to the extradition process being suspended. The decision of the Vilnius regional court in extradition cases may be appealed. There are clear criteria in the Lithuanian Criminal Code (article 9 (3)) to be assessed by the courts in extradition cases. Such criteria differ from those examined in asylum cases. The asylum proceedings have not touched upon the matter of the extradition of the author to Belarus. 4.4 The State party submits that the European Convention on Human Rights and the European Court of Human Rights case law are directly applicable in Lithuanian courts. The domestic courts apply the standards of article 3 of the Convention to cases of degrading treatment of inmates in Lithuanian prisons. Article 3 covers situations, such as that of the author, therefore the domestic courts are obliged to assess whether the person will be subjected to treatment prohibited by article 3 of the Convention upon extradition. 4.5 In view of the information above, the State party submits that the author’s communication is misleading since he failed to mention the proceedings in the court of first instance in his extradition case. The domestic proceedings in extradition cases have a suspensive effect. The author’s submission was most probably aimed at protracting the domestic proceedings in his extradition case, given the premature application for interim measures. Author’s comments on the State party’s observations 5.1 On 25 July 2017, the author submitted his comments to the State party’s observations, insisting that the interim measures should be maintained. On the matter of exhaustion of domestic remedies, the author claims that there is no formal obligation to exhaust all domestic remedies in the context of extradition. The threshold of imminence, however, requires making use of domestic remedies capable of suspending a removal. The author insists, however, that he has exhausted the available domestic remedies. 5.2 The author submits that the courts of general jurisdiction which consider his extradition case will not be able to contradict the final judgment of the Supreme Administrative Court, which found no grounds to provide subsidiary protection to the author on the grounds of the conditions of detention in SIZO No. 1 and the lack of fair trial in Belarus. The State party has not shown a single case where the courts of general jurisdiction took a decision not to extradite an applicant whose asylum application was unsuccessful. 5.3 The only useful effect of the proceedings before the courts of general jurisdiction is the fact that they suspend the removal. 5.4 The author submits that one of the main principles of the interim measures is that the respective request shall be made in good time and as soon as possible. There is no need to wait for the final extradition decision, especially since the author has already raised the matter of degrading conditions of detention and an unfair trial in Belarus before the administrative courts. If a final court decision on his extradition has already been adopted, the author would have been extradited and would not have possibility to submit a request for interim measures. The Committee would not have had sufficient time to process such request. 4