CCPR/C/126/D/2989/2017 Additional submissions by the parties Author 6. On 21 August 2017, the author repeated his request for interim measures. He claims that he does not possess any documents permitting his stay in Lithuania since his asylum application has been rejected. State party 7. On 1 September 2017, the State party responded to the additional information provided by the author, maintaining its position that the asylum and extradition proceedings are separate and independent procedures. The State submits that the author will not be extradited while his communication is being considered by the Committee. It adds that the legal status of the author may be reconsidered based on the reasoning and factual evaluation of the courts in his extradition case. Author 8.1 On 28 December 2017, the author submitted new information about the exhaustion of domestic remedies in the expulsion proceedings. On 6 November 2017, the Vilnius regional court adopted a decision to extradite the author to Belarus. On 15 December 2017, the Lithuanian Appeals Court rejected the author’s appeal and maintained the decision of the Vilnius regional court. The author requested the Committee to reinstate the request for interim measures. 8.2 The courts found that the extradition criteria had been met and that there were no grounds for rejecting the extradition request of Belarussian authorities. The courts referred to the finding of the administrative courts in the author’s asylum case that there was no basis to consider the criminal prosecution of the author as politically motivated or discriminatory. The Courts dismissed the author’s claims about the risk of violation of his rights under articles 7, 10 (1), 14 (1), 17 and 25 (b) of the Covenant if he was extradited to Belarus. They stated that the extradition was regulated by a bilateral agreement between Lithuania and Belarus, and was based on the principle of mutual trust that the foreign State would implement its international obligations. The Lithuanian courts are not able to verify the allegations of the author. In particular, the courts are not in a position to evaluate the conditions of detention in a foreign country and even less are they able to find that they violate an international treaty to which the requesting State is a party. The domestic courts did not find grounds to conclude that Belarus would fail to protect the author’s fundamental rights and freedoms. State party’s observations on the merits 9.1 In a note verbale dated 18 May 2018, the State party provided its observations on the merits of the communication, stating that the author’s allegations should be considered inadmissible under article 2 of the Optional Protocol, considering their abstract nature and the fact that the national authorities had examined his case on the basis of safeguards established under national law. 9.2 The State party submits that after resuming examination of the author’s extradition case, which had been suspended in view of the request of interim measures granted by the Committee, the Vilnius regional court held hearings on 30 August, 19 September and 9 October 2017. The Court took into account the author’s allegations that his extradition would be in violation of article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights on account of the conditions of detention in Belarus prisons. The Court noted that the remand measure indicated by the author was based on the ongoing criminal investigation and the author’s absence from Belarus, and therefore it was not possible to predict whether, after the author’s extradition, it would be applied at all. The State party submits that Belarusian legislation provides for the possibility to appeal the order for detention on remand. Once the author is extradited, there is a possibility that the detention would be replaced with a lighter remand measure. 5