‘Treaties don’t work’: Wanted Western fugitives hide in wartime Russia
Al Jazeera
Moscow’s cooperation on extraditions with its westward neighbours has practically ceased since the Ukraine war began.
Chad Hower is a wanted man.
In 2009, the American software developer was federally indicted for parental kidnapping.
He had allegedly failed to appear at a court hearing in Venango County, Pennsylvania in the US with his 10-year-old son, Alex, contradicting a custody order from his ex-wife. Hower to this day insists on his innocence, claiming he had rightful custody.
A few weeks later, he was arrested at his hotel in Bulgaria where he’d been attending a conference.
“It was pretty horrible,” Hower told Al Jazeera from St Petersburg, Russia. “I went through five different Bulgarian prisons: they were full of roaches, there was no heat, four of us crammed into a room for two.”
