DUSHANBE, April 15 - RAPSI, Lidia Isamova. The Dubai court has approved the extradition of Tajik opposition leader Umarali Kuvvatov, 46, his lawyer Nikolai Nikolayev said.

Interpol arrested Kuvvatov last December at Dubai International Airport at the request of the Tajik authorities on charges of fraudulent business activities. He arrived in the United Arab Emirates on a transit flight from Moscow to Brussels via Baku.

"The Dubai court has decided to extradite Kuvvatov," his lawyer has written on Facebook, adding that he still has not received a copy of the courts decision. "This does not mean that Kuvvatov will be extradited immediately. We will take other measures in compliance with UAE legislation," Nikolayev writes.

A month before, the Dubai court rejected the Tajik authorities extradition appeal, postponing the hearing for a month.

Kuvvatov, who has lived in Russia for the past two years, is accused of large-scale fraud in Tajikistan. The Tajik financial control and corruption watchdog initiated a lawsuit against Kuvvatov, charging him with embezzling 6 million somoni (around $1.5 million). In the summer 2012 Kuvvatov declared himself the leader of the opposition movement Group 24, which has publicly criticized corruption under Tajikistani President Emomali Rahmon.

The group called for President Rahmon to resign and claimed that the upcoming presidential elections would not be democratic or fair. The group also criticized the presidents actions over the military conflict in Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Province in summer 2012.