Sweden announced today that it will extradite a Turkish national at Ankara’s request, but rejected another request, as the issue of extradition of certain individuals sought by Ankara from Stockholm is one of Turkey’s key demands to lift its veto in the accession of this Nordic country to NATO.

The Swedish Ministry of Justice announced that it had accepted the extradition of Omer Altun, a 29-year-old Turk who was sentenced by a Turkish court last year to 15 years in prison for “the equivalent of fraud in Sweden”.

However, extradition was granted only on the condition that Altun be retried upon his return to Turkey.

The decision, dated March 30, a copy of which was obtained by AFP, was made after Sweden’s Supreme Court gave the go-ahead for extradition.

“The government shares the opinion of the Supreme Court that nothing prevents the extradition of Omer Altun to Turkey,” the Court said.

But the government rejected an extradition request for Mehmet Zakir Karayel, a 51-year-old Swede whom Ankara suspects of being a member of an “armed terrorist organization,” according to the Swedish justice ministry.

According to Swedish law, “a Swedish citizen cannot be extradited,” the ministry explained.

Sweden has extradited at least two Turkish citizens in the past year and rejected requests for several others, including a request for the former editor of Zaman newspaper, accused by Turkey of involvement in the 2016 coup attempt.

After the outbreak of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Sweden and Finland abandoned their decades-long policy of neutrality, applying to join NATO.

After months of delay, Turkey ratified Finland’s membership last month, allowing it to become the Alliance’s 31st member this week.

Sweden has been forced to wait, with Turkey and Hungary yet to ratify its NATO membership.