Extradition from Britain

For over seven years, Khalid al-Fawwaz has been fighting extradition to the United States to stand trial for the 1998 East Africa embassy bombings that killed 224 people.^[1] He is currently in prison in the United Kingdom, and the struggle may finally be coming to a conclusion.^[2] According to a report in the Times of London, “Mr. Fawwaz’s lawyers have been given a deadline by which they must submit last-ditch pleas against his surrender to the American authorities.”^[3] Mr. Fawwaz’s case is one of at least two embarrassing cases for the British government because of its dragged-out pace; another man, wanted by the French for terror charges, has been in jail for over a decade.^[4]

In December 2001, the House of Lords sanctioned the extradition of Mr. Fawwaz, but since then, responses and counter-responses between Mr. Fawwaz’s lawyers and US authorities have been protracted.^[5] When the Home Office gave Mr. Fawwaz’s lawyers the opportunity to argue against extradition, they provided over 750 pages of arguments.^[6] It took until last year for the US government to respond to all the issues.^[7] After that response, Mr. Fawwaz’s lawyers replied with yet more argumentation; the US reply finally arrived this year.^[8]

The head of the Home Office extradition unit, Irving Jones, wrote: “We should perhaps stress here that the purpose was not to engage in endless dialogue but rather to satisfy the interests of fairness that the courts expect to be met in the decisionmaking process. … The overall process has taken longer than was ever expected.”^[9]

---

[1] Sean O’Neill, Bin Laden’s London Man May Finally Be Sent to US After 7 Years, Times Online, Aug. 31, 2005, available here.
[2] Id.
[3] Id.
[4] Id.
[5] Id.
[6] Id.
[7] Id.
[8] Id.
[9] Id.