Russia's GPO asks Georgia to extradite sergeant Glukhov

The Russian General Prosecutor's Office (GPO) has sent a request to Georgia on extradition of Alexander Glukhov, junior sergeant of Russian Army, accused of desertion from the disposition of his military unit in South Ossetia in late January this year.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that on March 18 Shota Utiashvili, official representative of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA) of Georgia, said that Alexander Glukhov was granted a refugee status in Georgia.

"Under the available information, Glukhov is now in the territory of Georgia. In this context, the Russian GPO sent a request to the Chief Prosecutor's Office of the Ministry of Justice of Georgia on his extradition with the aim to bring him to criminal liability," Marina Gridneva, official GPO representative, has stated today, as quoted by the ITAR-TASS.

Sources in the Union of the Committees of Soldier's Mothers of Russia do not believe that the GPO will succeed in sergeant Glukhov's extradition. According to the Union's leader Valentina Melnikova, it is absolutely unclear how could prosecutors ask Georgia to extradite a runaway, if now Russia has no diplomatic relations and direct official contacts with Georgia, as the "Interfax" reports.

So far, there are no comments of the Georgian party on the Russian GPO's inquiry. The "Georgia Online" reports with reference to the press service of the Ministry of Justice, which manages the Georgian Chief Prosecutor's Office, that no inquiry from the Russian GPO on Alexander Glukhov's extradition arrived yet.

In the evening on April 10, Glukhov met his mother in Tbilisi. She explains his son's runaway by hazing and bad service conditions. "The service conditions were bad. Since July 2008, they lived in tents. No normal food and no bath. They extorted money from him. He used to tell me about it all the time," the "Free Press" quotes Ms Glukhova as saying.