CCPR/C/129/D/2445/2014 supervisory review falls within the prerogatives of the judge examining the complaint, and thus there is no guarantee of an unconditional examination of the case. 5.2 Counsel notes in addition that, on 15 August 2014, the author was transferred from Moscow to the Federal Service of Execution of Penalties in the region of Omsk in view of his extradition. According to counsel, the author has in fact already been extradited. 5.3 Counsel recalls the author’s claims that, contrary to article 7 of the Covenant, upon extradition he would be at risk of being subjected to torture and inhuman or cruel treatment as an ethnic Tajik.4 5.4 Counsel adds that, during his stay in the penitentiary colony in Jalal-Abad, the author was subjected to cruel treatment by penitentiary officials on the basis of his ethnicity. 5 5.5 In support of the argumentation regarding the persecution of national minorities in Kyrgyzstan, counsel refers to the judgment of the European Court of Human Rights in Ergashev v. the Russian Federation (application No. 49747/11), in which the Court noted that, based on the numerous reports submitted by international organizations on the respect of human rights in Kyrgyzstan, it should be noted that, despite the improvement in the situation since the summer of 2010, torture, cruel treatment and extortion were still widely used by law enforcement officials against ethnic Uzbeks suspected of having committed crimes during the clashes of 2010. The Court thus found that there were grounds for believing that a risk of treatment contrary to article 3 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (the European Convention on Human Rights) existed and that the applicant’s extradition would constitute a violation of that Convention. Even though the author in the present case is an ethnic Tajik, not an Uzbek, according to counsel he nevertheless risks persecution based on his ethnicity. 5.6 Counsel believes that the risk of the author being subjected to torture is more than real, as he is accused of abscondment from a place of deprivation of liberty even though he was released by the penitentiary administration in order to attend his father’s funeral, and due to objective circumstances he could not return on time. 5.7 Counsel claims that, upon return to Kyrgyzstan, the author would be immediately arrested, which would expose him to a risk of being tortured so as to force him to confess to the alleged abscondment. State party’s observations on the merits 6.1 In a note verbale dated 30 July 2015, the State party provided its observations on the merits. Firstly, it observes that counsel’s argumentation regarding the author’s criminal prosecution based on his ethnicity is groundless. The author’s prosecution is general in nature and has nothing to do with Kyrgyz politics. 6.2 On 9 April 2014, when examining the author’s claims against the decision of 24 January 2014 by the Prosecutor General’s Office allowing his extradition, the Moscow City Court found that the author’s allegations that he was unaware of having been prosecuted in Kyrgyzstan were refuted by the case file material. In court, the author did not refute having left the penitentiary institution prior to the completion of his prison term, nor did he refute having left Kyrgyzstan. He did not challenge the grounds of his prosecution relating to drug trafficking, which served as the basis for his sentence. The case file material shows that, during his imprisonment, the author signed an agreement that he would not attempt to escape. 6.3 Those facts, when read together, show that the author was aware of the need to serve his sentence, which has been reduced by virtue of various amnesty acts, as well as of the need not to attempt to avoid serving the sentence. No convincing or truthful information was presented to the court to show that the author had left the penitentiary colony and travelled abroad based on an agreement with the penitentiary administration. On the contrary, the 4 5 Counsel reiterates the reference to the reports of the Special Rapporteur on torture, the United States State Department and Amnesty International (see para. 2.3). No further details provided. 5