On Wednesday, September 11, the first-instance court annulled the government's decision, made on August 1, to extradite Andrei Ševljakov to the United States. Ševljakov had contested the government's decision in court.

The court found that, since there is no certainty about the conditions in U.S. prisons, the government must receive assurances from the United States that Ševljakov will not be detained or placed in a facility where the conditions are inhumane.

"Despite the fact that, under the extradition agreement, Estonia is generally obliged to hand over an accused person to another country for criminal proceedings, the respondent also has a duty to protect its citizen from inhumane or degrading treatment. Extradition cannot be permitted if it is known that the citizen will face degrading detention conditions, or if such a possibility cannot be ruled out without doubt. In this case, such certainty does not exist, and therefore the court cannot consider the respondent's (government's) August 1 decision lawful," the administrative court's ruling stated.

The court did not exclude the possibility that the respondent could make a new decision on Ševljakov's extradition if the humane nature of the detention conditions is confirmed or if the respondent reaches another agreement with U.S. authorities that does not result in a violation of the complainant's dignity.

According to ERR's Russian-language news portal Rus.ERR.ee, which first reported the administrative court's ruling, the reasoning was similar to that of the Tallinn Circuit Court's November 2023 decision, which overturned the government's decision to extradite Estonian citizens Ivan Turõgin and Sergei Potapenko, who were accused of cryptocurrency fraud, to the United States. At the time, the circuit court found that there was no certainty about the conditions under which the Estonian citizens would be detained in the U.S. and cited potential violations of their fundamental rights. The government did not challenge that decision, instead initiating a new administrative procedure, after which Turõgin and Potapenko were ultimately extradited to U.S. authorities, as the court's concerns had been addressed and remedied.

Ševljakov was arrested on March 28 of last year in a joint operation between the FBI and Estonia's Internal Security Service (ISS).

According to the FBI, the 45-year-old Ševljakov had been ordering electronics from the U.S. for years through shell companies to supply the Russian government and armed forces, violating export control regulations.

The U.S. authorities had already added Ševljakov to their list of individuals posing a threat to U.S. national security and foreign policy interests in 2012.

If convicted, Ševljakov faces up to 20 years in prison.

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