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Poland has deported a former Russian intelligence officer with the counterintelligence unit of the Federal Security Service (FSB), denying his repeated requests for asylum and handing him back over to Russian authorities, reports said Wednesday.
Emran Navruzbekov was deported to Russia after a Polish court ruled last week that he posed a threat to the country's security when he allegedly refused to obey police demands and was aggressive while living in a refugee camp in Poland’s Kuyavian-Pomeranian Voivodeship province, reported Radio Free Europe.
Navruzbekov, who had first applied for asylum in 2017 after handing over 500 files of classified documents, accused the FSB of fabricating "terrorist cases" against residents in Russia’s north Caucasus region of Dagestan.
People walk past the headquarters of the Federal Security Service, the successor agency to the KGB, in central Moscow on March 3, 2023. (Alexander Nemenov/AFP via Getty Images)
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It is unclear why his application was initially denied by Polish authorities as his wife and children were granted asylum.
The former FSB employee reapplied for asylum in October 2022 and remained in the Polish refugee camp while he awaited his appeal before he was detained on May 17 by authorities over allegedly aggressive behavior.
Navruzbekov has denied the accusations.
Details surrounding his claims against Russia’s chief intelligence agency came to light earlier this year when he told Russian outlets that he and other Russian intelligence officers left or were planning to leave the FSB to avoid committing crimes.
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Russian police officers work at the site where FSB forces killed five people, including a Jordanian described as an al Qaeda leader, in Khasavyurt, Russia, on Nov. 26, 2006. (Bashir Aliev/AFP via Getty Images)
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Navruzbekov alleged that Russia’s FSB officers organize "controlled terrorist attacks," conduct extrajudicial killings under the guise of "liquidating terrorists," engage in torture and falsify criminal cases against innocent people in "revenge for their refusal to cooperate and fulfill the instructions of the special services."
The former FSB officer told Radio Free Europe in January that he ultimately decided to flee Russia after he was given an assignment in Turkey to collect information about exiled opposition activists from Dagestan, Chechnya and other north Caucasus regions.
"I decided to run away from the criminal system," he told the outlet.
He fled to Poland through Belarus by appealing to a Polish border guard, telling the guard that he carried classified documents.
Guards patrol the wall at the Polish-Belarus border near Bialowieza, Poland, on May 29, 2023. (Wojtek Radwanski/AFP via Getty Images)
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Navruzbekov said he decided to speak out in January to show he has "nothing in common with the Russian special services" as the Russia-Ukraine war continued.
Fox News Digital could not immediately reach the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs for comment on its refusal to grant Navruzbekov asylum and his subsequent deportation.