The deportation of Kurdish activist Mehmet Çakas to Turkey was imminent. In his asylum proceedings, an emergency appeal against the deportation was rejected by the Lüneburg Administrative Court back in June. A constitutional complaint against that decision is currently pending before the Federal Constitutional Court.
However, in a new emergency ruling issued on Friday, the Lüneburg Administrative Court has decided, based on a new application, that Mehmet Çakas may not be deported to Turkey for the time being. “This provides – albeit very provisional – protection for Mehmet Çakas from deportation,” his legal team told ANF.
The new decision is based on the fact that Çakas was previously extradited from Italy to Germany in order to face trial for alleged PKK membership before the Higher Regional Court of Celle. “In its ruling at the time, the Milan Court of Appeals, which was responsible for deciding on the extradition, stated that deportation of Mehmet Çakas from Germany to Turkey would only be possible with the prior approval of that Italian court,” explained the legal team.
That court dismissed concerns raised by Çakas’s Italian lawyers that Germany might not provide sufficient protection, arguing: “The alleged denial of international protection by Germany is not significant. Çakas’s fear of being extradited from Germany to Turkey is unfounded, since it could not happen without the consent of this court, which authorized the execution of the European Arrest Warrant.”
Currently, no such consent exists. Based on this, the Lüneburg court has now prohibited the responsible immigration authority in Harburg from deporting Çakas to Turkey.
“The planned deportation of Mehmet Çakas by the immigration office without prior Italian consent would have been a clear circumvention of European extradition law and would have undermined protective mechanisms,” said attorney Lukas Bastisch. He criticized the fact that authorities in Lower Saxony have pushed the deportation process this far. “This confirms the Italian lawyers’ fears that Çakas could be deported from Germany to Turkey were very much justified. In the future, no further extraditions should take place from other European countries to Germany over allegations of PKK membership, as Kurdish activists in Germany are clearly not adequately protected from deportation to Turkey.”