Criminal defence · International cooperation

Extradition and Interpol red notices in Georgia - when a criminal case follows you across borders

Many people find out at a passport desk. A routine border check turns into a long wait, then an arrest, and only then do they learn that another country has opened a criminal case and circulated their name through Interpol. Others notice smaller signs first: a frozen bank transfer, a visa refusal with no explanation, a relative questioned back home.

From that moment the case runs in two legal systems at once - in the requesting state, where the accusation sits, and in the country where you are physically present, which decides whether to hand you over. This page is written for foreign nationals in Georgia and for Georgians abroad. It covers how extradition works in both directions, what a red notice really is, how to challenge one before Interpol's Commission for the Control of Files, how Georgian courts review extradition detention, the grounds on which surrender can be refused, and how to check your risk before you travel.

Updated 14.11.2026 · Practice area: Criminal defence lawyer

Call: 568 330 318 Lawyers for extradition and Interpol cases

Two directions

Extradition to and from Georgia - who asks and who decides

Extradition is the surrender of a person by one state to another, either to stand trial or to serve a sentence already imposed. Georgia handles it under its Law on International Cooperation in Criminal Matters, bilateral treaties and the European Convention on Extradition. Where no treaty applies, cooperation is not automatically ruled out; in some cases it proceeds on the basis of reciprocity.

When a foreign state asks Georgia to hand someone over, the competent authorities examine the request and its supporting documents, while arrest and detention are matters for a Georgian court. When it is the other way round and Georgia seeks someone living abroad, the main defence battle takes place in the country where that person lives. A lawyer in Georgia still has work to do on the domestic side: the strength of the charge, any preventive measure ordered in absence, and trial in absentia.

The two situations call for different strategies. For a foreigner detained in Georgia, the priorities are getting out of custody and dismantling the legal basis for surrender. For a Georgian citizen wanted by Georgia while abroad, the focus is on exposing weak points in the domestic case and coordinating closely with counsel in the country deciding on extradition.

Interpol

Being wanted through Interpol - red notices, diffusions and what they actually mean

Red notice: An international alert issued at a member state's request, asking police elsewhere to locate a person and provisionally arrest them pending extradition. It is not an international arrest warrant: every country decides for itself what to do with it.
Diffusion: A less formal message that a country sends directly to other members. Review by Interpol often happens after it has already gone out, which is why problematic requests sometimes travel in this form.
Article 3 of Interpol's Constitution: The organisation is barred from any intervention in matters of a political, military, religious or racial character. A request that is really aimed at an opposition figure or a journalist can be deleted on this basis; presenting a private or commercial dispute as a crime is a separate line of argument.
National Central Bureau: In Georgia, Interpol's National Central Bureau sits within the Ministry of Internal Affairs system. Information flows through it, and an arrest at the border is usually triggered by an entry already present in the database.

Challenging a notice

Taking a red notice to Interpol's Commission for the Control of Files (CCF)

The CCF is independent of Interpol's General Secretariat and checks whether personal data has been processed in line with the organisation's rules. Applying costs nothing and you do not strictly need a lawyer, but the quality of the argument largely decides the outcome.

Ask for access to your data
If you are unsure whether a notice exists, start by asking the Commission what information Interpol holds about you. It consults the source country before replying, and that country may refuse to let the data be disclosed.
Prepare the deletion request
It must be written in one of Interpol's working languages - English, French, Spanish or Arabic - and anchored in specific rules: political character, inaccurate data, the private nature of the dispute, fair trial failings in the requesting state.
Build the evidence file
Charging documents, reports by international bodies on the country concerned, decisions by other states that already refused to extradite you, proof of refugee status. Every assertion needs a source behind it.
Review and decision
The Commission forwards the request to the source country and weighs its response. Its decision binds Interpol; once deleted, the entry is removed from Interpol's files, although copies kept in national police databases are a separate problem to deal with.
Work in the requesting state
In parallel, counsel in the requesting country tries to get the domestic warrant or charge lifted where the law allows - limitation, discontinuance, acquittal. Cancelling the national warrant is the most direct way to bring down the notice.

Detention

Extradition detention and how Georgian courts review it

A person arrested in Georgia on a red notice is brought before a court, which decides whether to order extradition detention while the formal request and documents from the requesting state are examined. The hearing looks like an ordinary detention hearing, with one key difference: the court does not try the accusation itself. It asks whether the legal conditions for surrender exist and whether keeping the person in custody is genuinely necessary.

The defence argues on two levels. The first is necessity: a permanent home, family, a residence permit, an offer to surrender the passport. The lawyer presses the court to assess the actual risk and, where the law permits, to consider something less restrictive than custody. The second is any obvious bar to surrender that is visible already: the conduct is not a crime in Georgia, the limitation period has run, or the political background of the request is plain to see.

Extradition detention is time-limited by law, and extending it takes a fresh court decision. If the requesting state is slow with its paperwork or the process drags without good reason, the lawyer applies for release. Both the detention order and the decision on surrender itself can be challenged within short deadlines, so every document served is dealt with the same day.

Grounds to refuse

When surrender can be refused - what the defence checks

Persecution because of political opinion, race, religion, nationality or membership of a social group - or solid grounds to believe the charge is a cover for it.
A real risk of torture or inhuman or degrading treatment in the requesting state; this prohibition is absolute and no treaty can override it.
Exposure to the death penalty without reliable assurances that it will not be imposed or carried out.
No double criminality - the conduct must also be an offence under Georgian law.
An expired limitation period, or a final judgment already given for the same conduct.
A purely political or military offence that is not an ordinary crime.
Georgian citizenship - handing a citizen over to a foreign state is tightly restricted and, as a rule, possible only where an international treaty provides for it.
Refugee status or a pending asylum claim where the request comes from the very country the person fled; surrender would breach the principle of non-refoulement.

Asylum and travel

Asylum, the European Court and checking your risk before you fly

Asylum alongside extradition

If the extradition request comes from the country you fled, an application for international protection bears directly on whether you can be surrendered. Different bodies handle the two procedures, and your lawyer has to make sure the material in one is reflected properly in the other - your accounts must not contradict each other.

Interim measures in Strasbourg

When surrender is imminent and there is a real risk of irreparable harm, the European Court of Human Rights can be asked to indicate an interim measure halting it. This is an exceptional tool and needs concrete evidence, not general concerns.

Pre-travel risk check

Anyone who knows that a case exists against them elsewhere should establish before travelling whether there is a national warrant, whether a notice has been issued, which countries have extradition treaties with the requesting state and how those countries tend to act. Even a transit airport can become the place of arrest.

Georgians sought from abroad

If a Georgian citizen is wanted by another country, a lawyer assesses what that means the moment they leave Georgia and whether the case could be dealt with here instead. Sometimes working on the accusation remotely, with local counsel abroad, is far safer than getting on a plane.

Questions about extradition and Interpol notices

How can I find out whether Interpol is looking for me?

Only a small share of red notices are published on Interpol's website; most are visible to law enforcement only. The reliable route is a data access request to the CCF, combined with a lawyer making enquiries about the underlying case in the requesting country.

I have a red notice. Will I be arrested in Georgia?

You might be - that is exactly what a notice is for. But arrest does not mean automatic surrender. The court reviews whether detention is necessary, and surrender is decided in a separate procedure in which every ground for refusal is examined.

I am a recognised refugee in another country. Does the notice still apply?

Interpol has a policy under which a request against a recognised refugee from the country they fled should, as a rule, not be processed. This is a strong argument before the Commission, but you must supply proof of your status yourself - Interpol does not check it of its own accord.

How long does the Commission take?

Months rather than weeks, because it puts questions to the source country and waits for answers. During that time the notice normally remains active, and so does the travel risk. If you are already detained, the defence before the national court runs in parallel and does not wait for Interpol.

If the notice is deleted, is the case over?

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Gocha Kilasonia

Civil law · Criminal defence

Georgian · Cert. No. 0307

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