Lithuania has deported a Chechen man to Russia who had lived in the country for more than 20 years, human-rights activist Roza Dunayeva reported. The independent Russian investigative outlet The Insider identified the man as Beslan Estemirov, citing a source in Lithuania’s government.
Dunayeva said Estemirov had fled to Lithuania to escape the war in Chechnya, started a family there, and raised children who are Lithuanian citizens. Legal measures related to proceedings before the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) were in place in his case, Dunayeva said.
Estemirov’s defense attorney and family were not notified of his deportation to Russia, Dunayeva told The Insider. Lithuanian authorities cited a national-security threat as grounds for the deportation, she said. What that threat consisted of remains unclear.
Russia had sought Estemirov’s extradition on charges of participation in an illegal armed formation. Russian investigators believed he had been a member of an armed group since 2001 and had been involved in two bombings targeting riot police officers. He was charged under a terrorism statute, according to Russia’s Federal Financial Monitoring Service registry.
In Lithuania, Estemirov was convicted twice on drug-related charges. In 2014, he received a four-year prison sentence and was released on parole. In 2018, he received a nine-year sentence. Lithuania decided in 2020 to transfer him to Russia before that sentence was completed, according to Delfi.
In 2024, Delfi reported that Estemirov remained in a Lithuanian prison with a year left to serve. Around that same time, the outlet reported, the ECHR was expected to rule on whether Estemirov could be deported to Russia, where he faces, at minimum, the risk of torture. Dunayeva, however, said the European court issued a ruling prohibiting his extradition to Russia as far back as 2021.
What has happened to Estemirov since 2024 is unclear. In April, the outlet Kavkaz.Realii reported that he had been detained when he went to the Interior Ministry to renew his residence permit. At the time, Dunayeva said she did not know the reason for his detention.
At Meduza, we are committed to transparency about our use of artificial intelligence in the newsroom. The story you’re reading was written by one of our living, breathing journalists and translated from Russian using an AI model configured to follow our strict editorial standards. This translation process is the result of extensive testing and refinements to ensure our English-language coverage is timely and accurate. A Meduza editor reviews every draft before publication.
If you find any errors in this translation, please contact us at [email protected].
To read Meduza’s exclusive content in English, please subscribe to our newsletter.
