A Ukrainian appeals court on Tuesday ordered the extradition to Russia Adam Osmayev, suspected of attempting to kill then-Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin earlier this year.
The court rejected the appeal lodged by Osmayev’s defense team and upheld the decision by the Ukrainian Prosecutor General’s Office.
Under Ukrainian law, the ruling has come into force and may not be appealed again.
“A decision to ‘kill’ Osmayev has been made,” lawyer Valery Kochetov said.
In February Ukrainian and Russian security services said they had detained two men with Chechen links who were suspected of attempting to kill Putin.
Adam Osmayev has confessed to planning to murder Putin on the orders of Chechen warlord Doku Umarov.
News of the alleged plot came a week before the March 4 presidential polls in which Putin claimed a landslide victory amid widespread allegations of electoral fraud.
Some analysts and opposition figures have said the plot was fabricated to boost Putin's percentage.
Reports of thwarted assassination attempts against Putin appeared in advance of every election since the former KGB agent came to power in late 1999.
A number of Russian media said Chechen militants were planning to kill Putin, then the caretaker president, during his first presidential run in February 2000. Russia's security services neither confirmed nor denied the information. Ahead of Putin's re-election bid in 2003, Britain said it thwarted a suspected plot by two renegade KGB officers to assassinate Putin while on a foreign trip
