Extradition of a Soviet Sailor

Extradition in the USSR’s Treaties on Legal Assistance with Non-“Socialist” States

“…Thus, we know of an unsuccessful effort in 1962-63 by the Soviet consular branch in India to obtain the surrender of V. S. Tarasov, a mem-her of the crew of a Soviet merchant vessel, on a theft charge after he had jumped ship in the port of Calcutta and applied for political asylum in the United States. 96 By contrast, in 1978, a Soviet political dissident and former prisoner, Bogdan Klimchuk, managed to cross the Iranian frontier, but was returned by the Shah's regime to the Soviet Union and tossed into prison. 97 In a 1989 story about improved conditions on the Sino-Soviet border, military spokesmen on the Soviet side of the frontier talked of relaxed border duty owing, inter alia, to the infrequency of entry/exit violations ineither direction and a tested trust in the "Chinese comrades" to give back any Russian who decided to dart next door.…”