MOSCOW. March 26 (Interfax-AVN) - The Georgian Embassy in Moscow has confirmed that it received a note on Tuesday from the Russian Foreign Ministry demanding "the earliest possible extradition of Chechen field commander Ruslan Gelayev to Russia."
"There is only one comment on this: if Gelayev really is in Georgia and if the Georgian prosecutors have documents confirming his guilt, he must undoubtedly be detained and extradited to Russia," Embassy sources told Interfax.
When asked why Georgia had not responded to previous notes - the Russian Prosecutor General's Office sent the first request for Gelayev's extradition back on November 9, 2001 - Georgian diplomats said that "Georgia has its own laws and cannot simply catch and extradite a person." "Documents must be studied. If Gelayev is guilty and is in Georgia, there will be no problems in extraditing him," they said. The Georgian diplomats also said that Georgia had asked Russia on many occasions to detain and extradite former chief of the Georgian Security Service Igor Georgadze, accused of organizing an attempt on the life of President Eduard Shevardnadze.
Interpol has entered Georgadze onto the so-called "Red Notice," with the names of the most wanted criminals, they said.
"We have not received any coherent response from Russia to our numerous inquiries," a Georgian diplomat said.