UN slams Italy for 'extraordinary rendition'

UN slams Italy for 'extraordinary rendition'

UN rights experts urged Italy Thursday to do everything possible help the wife and daughter of a Kazakh dissident who were illegally deported in May to return to the country.

The wife and daughter of Mukhtar Ablyazov, a banker and political opponent of Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev, were deported to Kazakhstan on May 31st, in a move Italy has since acknowledged was illegal.

"Given the possible serious implications of this case, we call upon both the Italian and Kazakh authorities to cooperate and reach a diplomatic agreement to facilitate the rapid return of the deportees," said the UN expert on the rights of migrants, Francois Crepeau, the expert on torture and other cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, Juan Mendez and the expert on the independence of judges and lawyers, Gabriela Knaul.

Alma Shalabayeva and her six-year-old daughter were legal EU residents, the experts said in a statement, charging that Italian authorities had violated guarantees of due process of heir right to appeal against deportation and to apply for asylum.

"The circumstances of the deportation give rise to the appearance that this was in fact an extraordinary rendition which is of great concern to us," they said.

Italian police busted into Shalabayeva's home near Rome on May 29th in search of Ablyazov, who was granted political asylum in Britain in 2011 but who fled after police warned him his life was in danger.

http://www.thelocal.it/20130719/un-slams-italy-for-extraordinary-rendition