Svetlana Timofojeva, a Russian woman arrested and charged with espionage in Albania, requested asylum in the Western Balkan country on Monday, saying she feared persecution if she returned to Russia.
Timofojeva (33) was arrested in August 2022 with another Russian, 25-year-old Mikhail Zorin and Ukrainian Fedir Mihailov (authorities also identify him as Fyodor Mihailovic), age unknown, after they allegedly tried to enter a military facility.
They were arrested inside or near a former military facility in Grams, 80 kilometers south of the capital Tirana. The suspects took photographs of the facility.
Timofojeva, a self-proclaimed blogger, said she was just trying to photograph the former communist military facility - part of her efforts to document abandoned Cold War buildings.
She is in a women's prison in Tirana. The hearing is scheduled for March 17.
"If I return to the Russian Federation, I will be persecuted for my political beliefs," she claims.
Her lawyer, Isuf Sehu, said the asylum request was filed with Albanian authorities because Timofojeva faces similar espionage charges in Russia, also for her blogging efforts to photograph places marked by the Cold War, often military installations.
Moscow requested her extradition.
"There is reason to believe that she will be subjected to persecution or discrimination or to cruel, inhuman, degrading treatment or actions that constitute a violation of fundamental human rights. The return of this citizen to Russia would be contrary to the prohibition of torture and inhuman and degrading treatment," it is stated in to the asylum application.
In a ruling dated August 24, Albanian judge Pajtime Fetahu agreed with the prosecutor's request that Timofojeva, Zorin and Mihajlov be detained on charges of "providing secret information of military or any other significance that would be delivered to a foreign power, which violates the country's independence."
Zorin and Mihailov are also in custody in Albania. They too have denied the charges and are said to have appealed to the Supreme Court.
The arrest of three foreign nationals caused alarm in Albania, a NATO member that supports Ukraine in its defense against a Russian invasion.
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