6.  The applicant was born in 1951 and is currently detained in Sofia Prison.
7.  On 17 December 2016 the applicant took a flight from Kutaisi, Georgia, to Sofia, Bulgaria. When trying to pass through the passport control at Sofia Airport, he was arrested pursuant to a red notice issued by the National Central Bureau of Interpol for Iran on 14 September 2016.
8.  According to the red notice, on 24 June 2016 the applicant and another person had stolen by means of trickery a bag containing 50,000 euros from a foreign-exchange office in Tehran. The applicant’s alleged accomplice had been arrested, but the applicant had fled Iran the same day.
9.  The notice went on to say that the offence in connection with which the applicant was being sought was one under Article 656 of the Iranian Penal Code (see paragraphs 38-40 below), and that the maximum penalty in respect of it was three years’ imprisonment.
10.  The next day, 18 December 2016, the National Central Bureau of Interpol for Iran confirmed that the applicant was still being sought and sent to the Bulgarian authorities a copy, in Persian, of the warrant for his arrest.
11.  The same day the Bulgarian prosecuting authorities detained the applicant for seventy-two hours. On 21 December 2016 they asked the Sofia City Court to place him in detention for up to forty days pending receipt of a formal extradition request by the Iranian authorities.
12.  The Sofia City Court heard the prosecuting authorities’ application the same day. In his closing statement, the applicant said:
“[S]ending me to Iran would be unfair, because they have no laws, they decide as they please, they will ascribe this to me and I will not make it home. You know their laws! I have no one to protect me there. They have no laws and judges, but decide as they please. Can you give the sheep to the wolves?”
13.  Having deliberated immediately after the hearing, the Sofia City Court allowed the prosecuting authorities’ request. It noted, inter alia, that at that stage it was not yet deciding whether to extradite the applicant but simply whether to keep him in custody in the meantime.
14.  The applicant’s court-appointed counsel appealed against that decision. However, when the appeal was heard by the Sofia Court of Appeal on 27 December 2016, the applicant said that he had not instructed the court-appointed counsel to lodge it and wished to be represented by counsel of his own choice. In view of the applicant’s statement, the court discontinued the appeal proceedings.
15.  In January 2017 the Iranian authorities submitted to the Bulgarian authorities an extradition request in respect of the applicant. The request stated that the act allegedly committed by him constituted an offence under Article 656 § 4 of the Iranian Penal Code (see paragraphs 38-40 below), and specified that according to the text of that provision the punishment envisaged under it was six months’ to three years’ imprisonment.
16.  In the request the Iranian authorities assured their Bulgarian counterparts that the applicant would not face torture or inhuman treatment if extradited to Iran. They also expressed their willingness to honour extradition requests by Bulgaria. On that basis, on 26 January 2017 the Bulgarian Minister of Justice confirmed that de facto reciprocity existed between Bulgaria and Iran with respect to extradition.
17.  Extradition proceedings against the applicant were opened in the Sofia City Court on 29 January 2017. He had counsel of his own choice and was given an interpreter into Russian, a language that he apparently speaks.
18.  The same day the prosecuting authorities presented to the applicant and his counsel the extradition request and the documents enclosed with it (see paragraphs 15 and 16 above).
19.  The prosecution also asked the court to keep the applicant in detention until the conclusion of the extradition proceedings. The court allowed that request the same day, 29 January 2017.
20.  The court heard the extradition case on 6 and 28 February, 23 March and 12 April 2017.
21.  The line of argument taken by counsel for the applicant from the outset was that the evidence enclosed with the extradition request left some doubt about the actual date and time of the offence the applicant had allegedly committed, and that he could not have committed it on the date and at the time initially specified because he had by then already left Tehran. The prosecution urged the court to invite the Iranian authorities to clarify the date and time of the commission of the alleged offence.
22.  The court did so, in the exercise of its powers under section 17(3) of the Extradition and European Arrest Warrant Act 2005 (see paragraph 34 below), and in a diplomatic note of 5 April 2017 the Iranian authorities said that the applicant had committed the offence at 1.40 p.m. on 23 June 2016.
23.  In his closing statement on 12 April 2017 counsel for the applicant argued that the extradition request, even as supplemented later, failed in various ways to comply with the formal requirements. He said that doubts about the date and time of the commission of the alleged offence – 23 or 24 June 2016 – persisted, and that the available evidence gave rise to misgivings about whether the applicant had really committed the offence. He also pointed out that although Bulgaria had extradition agreements with many States, Iran was not among them.
24.  The same day the Sofia City Court allowed the request for the applicant’s extradition to Iran. It found, inter alia, that the extradition request met all formal requirements, and that it was permissible to proceed on the basis of the de facto reciprocity between Bulgaria and Iran. It also noted that the Iranian authorities had given assurances that the applicant would not face torture or inhuman treatment, and that there were no reasons to suspect that he would be exposed to a real risk of such treatment. In particular, Iranian law only envisaged imprisonment in respect of the alleged offence. It was not for the extradition court to delve into the merits of the criminal case.
25.  Counsel for the applicant appealed to the Sofia Court of Appeal. He reiterated that the applicant had already left Tehran at the time when the alleged offence had been committed.
26.  The appeal hearing took place on 9 May 2017. Counsel for the applicant made the same points as those that he had made at first instance (see paragraphs 21 and 23 above).
27.  In a final decision of the same date, the Sofia Court of Appeal upheld the Sofia City Court’s decision to allow the extradition request, for essentially the same reasons. It likewise noted that according to the information from the Iranian authorities, the punishment possibly awaiting the applicant was a term of imprisonment.
28.  The court also decided to keep the applicant in detention pending his extradition to the Iranian authorities.