CAT/C/54/D/542/2013 appealed the extradition decision before the Supreme Court. As of 1 June 2013, the Supreme Court has not rendered its decision on the appeal. As for the complainant’s asylum proceedings, the State party explains that this part of the complaint falls outside the scope of article 3 of the Convention and is inadmissible. 4.2 On 19 August 2013, the State party submitted its observations on the merits and informed the Committee that the complainant was extradited on 14 July 2013, after the extradition decision of the Office of the Procurator General became final. According to the State party, the extradition request from the Uzbek authorities related to a criminal offence committed by the complainant in Uzbekistan and not to crimes of political nature. The complainant did not produce sufficient arguments to demonstrate that he would be at risk of torture, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, or that he would be persecuted by the Uzbek authorities on the basis of race, religion, nationality, belonging to a certain group or based on political opinion. The State party submits that the Committee’s request for interim measures is not mandatory and that there are no reasons for its implementation, because the extradition check did not reveal any objective indications of a threat of torture upon the complainant’s extradition to Uzbekistan. Moreover, the guarantees provided by the Uzbek authorities are sufficient to prevent such a threat. The complainant’s comments 5.1 On 24 September 2013, counsel informed the Committee that the complainant was detained upon extradition in the pretrial detention facility of Fergana. His relatives and lawyers had no access to him or any information about him. Counsel alleges that the lack of information about the complainant and absence of communication with him gives reason to believe that he was subjected to torture and that the Uzbek authorities fell short of implementing the guarantees provided to their Russian counterparts. 5.2 To the State party’s argument regarding the exhaustion of domestic remedies, counsel responds that the final decision in extradition proceedings was adopted by the Supreme Court on 4 June 2013 and that the complainant was extradited on 14 July 2013. As for the complainant’s asylum proceedings, counsel submits that they are part of the process initiated with the aim of stopping extradition and are not a separate claim before the Committee. 5.3 Commenting on the State party’s observations on the merits, counsel submits that, during his asylum and extradition proceedings, the complainant denied existence of the criminal sentence and prosecution in Uzbekistan since 2002, and pointed at contradictions in the documents presented by the Uzbek authorities. Nevertheless, the Russian authorities failed to consider these concerns or the complainant’s claims about the risk of torture to which he would be subjected in Uzbekistan. Nor did the State party’s authorities consider the information from international sources, submitted by the complainant concerning the widespread and systematic use of torture in Uzbekistan. Instead, they kept referring to the guarantees presented by the Uzbek authorities. Additional information by the State party 6.1 On 26 February 2014, the State party informed the Committee that the complainant had been released from prison on 30 August 2013, having served his sentence, as communicated by the Office of the Procurator General of Uzbekistan on 24 January 2014. 6.2 The State party reiterated its argument that the complainant had not exhausted domestic remedies at the moment of submitting the complaint to the Committee. On 30 January 2013, the complainant filed an appeal with the Regional Court of Nizhny Novgorod against the extradition decision of 15 January 2013, but he did not provide information on the outcome of that appeal. 6