A court in the Albanian city of Elbasan has refused to extradite to Russia photographer and photoblogger Lana Sator (Svetlana Timofeeva), whom the Russian authorities accuse of illegally gaining access to state secrets. According to BBC Russian Service, the court doubts that Timofeeva's rights will be respected at home.
The photographer, along with two men, a Russian and a Ukrainian, was detained in Albania in August last year while trying to enter a military factory in the city of Gramsci. The Albanian authorities suspect Sator of espionage, the girl's defense claims that she wanted to hold a photo session on the territory of the plant.
Later, in Russia, a case was opened against Timofeeva and a request for extradition was sent to Albania. The defense of the Russian woman, who moved to Ukraine after the start of the full-scale invasion and spoke out against the war, asked the Albanian authorities not to extradite her. In March, Sator's relatives, who maintain her Instagram blog, reported that she had applied for asylum in Albania, citing the fact that her persecution in her homeland was politically motivated. In early April, it was also reported that the investigation against Sator in Albania was ongoing and the case had not yet been brought to court.
Sator regularly photographed working and abandoned factories, bunkers and other places, including closed ones, around the world and published reports on her blog.