A Kazakhstan court has arrested Denis Kozak, a 19-year-old anarchist from the Russian city of Rostov-on-Don, for 40 days because the man is wanted internationally on the basis of an extradition request from Russia, deputy director of the Kazakhstan International Bureau for Human Rights Denis Jivaga tells Novaya-Europe.
Tomorrow, Kozak will be transferred to a detention centre. In Russia, he is accused of publicly justifying terrorism because of his social media comment on the topic of Russian teenager Mikhail Zhlobitsky blowing himself up in the building of the regional directorate of the Federal Security Service in the Russian city of Arkhangelsk back in 2018.
Kozak has already applied for asylum. The petition could be considered for up to three months, or the period of consideration could be extended up to six months, Jivaga notes.
The Insider journalists previously called the police station in Kazakhstan’s city of Almaty where Kozak was being held. They were told about the police’s intentions to report to the “initiators in Moscow” about Kozak’s detention. A police officer told The Insider over the phone that Kozak would be deported from Kazakhstan to Moscow when Russian law enforcement arrived to get him.
Kozak was detained in Kazakhstan on 9 February.
Russian human rights project OVD-Info reported in June that criminal proceedings had been initiated against Denis Kozak, 19, accusing him of justifying terrorism online. The reason was a comment on social media to a post about Mikhail Zhlobitsky who detonated a bomb, killing himself at an FSB building in Arkhangelsk in 2018. OVD-info noted that the comment analysed the incident as Kozak communicated with Zhlobitsky online previously, but contained no explicit approval of the terror attack. Kozak had his home searched on 4 April and had his cellphone, his laptop and several books confiscated.
