A Cyprus district court has rejected a request from the United Kingdom to extradite R.S., a 45-year-old man accused of espionage at the British bases.
The case against him will now be filed again at the Limassol Criminal Court.
Britain sent the extradition request to the Republic of Cyprus last June, arguing that his alleged offences had been committed on British territory.
Cyprus Police arrested him in the summer of 2025. He was accused of offences including photographing military installations within the Akrotiri bases.
Background
The man was arrested on June 21, 2025, philenews reported in July. The Republic of Cyprus filed a case against him at the Limassol Criminal Court on charges including alleged surveillance of the ‘Andreas Papandreou’ air base in Paphos.
The Attorney General later suspended that case after considering the British request and decided to pursue his extradition instead. He, who holds Azerbaijani and British citizenship, was re-arrested on the basis of the British request when the suspension took effect in July.
According to information available to philenews at the time, UK authorities believe that he has a direct link to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. They allege he took visual material from inside buildings at the bases, monitored the frequency of British fighter jet flights and passed the information to a suspected handler, Elshad Elchin Hajiyev, who is wanted under an international arrest warrant. The man would face up to 14 years in prison if convicted in Britain.
In November 2025, the UK asked Cyprus through Eurojust, the EU’s Agency for Criminal Justice Cooperation, to set up a joint investigation team on the case, philenews reported.
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