ECtHR rules that Abu Hamza can be extradited to the US
Terrorism suspect Abu Hamza and four others can be extradited to the US, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has ruled.
Hamza, Babar Ahmad and three others claimed their potential imprisonment in a US “supermax” prison would amount to “inhuman and degrading treatment” under Art 3 of the Convention.
In Babar Ahmad & Ors v UK (App Nos 24027/07, 11949/08, 36742/08, 66911/09 and 67354/09) ECtHR unanimously ruled that the conditions within the prison and the length of their possible sentences did not breach Art 3.
Moreover, ECtHR found that not all international terrorism suspects were housed at the prison—ADX Florence in Colorado, which is known as the Alcatraz of the Rockies—and, if they were, sufficient procedural safeguards were in place. As regards ADX’s restrictive conditions and lack of human contact, ECtHR held the US authorities would be justified in considering the men a significant security risk and limiting their communications with the outside world. Inmates at the prison, while confined to their cells for most of the day, were provided with activities and services that went beyond those provided by most European prisons, it held.
Nobody has ever escaped from the notoriously harsh prison, which houses 490 of America’s most dangerous inmates.
The suspects can appeal to the Grand Chamber of ECtHR, and have three months to make an application. ECtHR has said the UK should not extradite any of the men until the judgment becomes final or the case is referred to the Grand Chamber.
ECtHR adjourned a sixth man’s case, that of Haroon Rashid Aswat, to hear further submissions about his mental health.
Ahmad and another man, Syed Tahla Ahsan, are accused of providing support to terrorists and conspiracy charges in a foreign country.
Abu Hamza faces charges on 11 different counts in the US, related to the taking of 16 hostages in Yemen in 1998, advocating violent jihad in Afghanistan in 2001 and conspiring to establish a jihad training camp in Oregon, US between June 2000 and December 2001.
Aswat is charged as Hamza’s co-conspirator. Two other men, Adel Abdul Bary and Khaled Al-Fawwaz, have been indicted by the US for alleged involvement in the bombing of US embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam in 1998. Bary faces 269 counts of murder.
ECtHR had earlier ruled, in 2010, on complaints lodged by Hamza, Ahmad and two other of the suspects. It found there was no real risk the men would be designated as enemy combatants if extradited and would not therefore face either the death penalty or extraordinary rendition.
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