Category Archives: Extradition

UN expert urged to investigate Lebanon over alleged torture of Egyptian-Turkish poet

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Abdulrahman al-Qaradawi has been imprisoned in the UAE for almost a year for criticising Emirati, Egyptian and Saudi governments

The UN special rapporteur on torture is being urged to investigate Lebanon’s role in the treatment of the Egyptian-Turkish poet and activist Abdulrahman al-Qaradawi, a dissident who has been imprisoned in the United Arab Emirates for more than 10 months over a post he made on social media.

Legal counsel representing Qaradawi filed a complaint to the UN rapporteur on Thursday, asking it to examine the situation.

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Exiled Hong Hong dissidents say UK plan to restart extraditions puts them in danger

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Legislative change comes five years after treaty suspended in response to city’s crackdown on pro-democracy activists

Exiled Hong Kong dissidents say they fear UK government plans to restart some extraditions with the city could put them in greater danger, saying Hong Kong authorities will use any pretext to pursue them.

An amendment to UK extradition laws was passed on Tuesday. It came more than five years after the UK and several other countries suspended extradition treaties with Hong Kong in response to the government crackdown on the pro-democracy movement, and its imposition of a Beijing-designed national security law.

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Kenya’s arrest warrant is milestone in Agnes Wanjiru case but lengthy UK process awaits

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After 13 years, warrant has been issued for UK suspect, but Robert James Purkiss would need to be extradited to face charges

In the spring of 2012, David Cameron was prime minister and British troops were still fighting in Afghanistan under the stewardship of the then defence secretary, Philip Hammond.

Before deploying, soldiers from the UK would be flown 3,000 miles south-west of Helmand province, to Kenya, for hot weather training. They would train at Batuk, the British army base that still operates today, close to Nanyuki, a poor market town in the east of the country.

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Judge quashes Home Office’s decision on US extradition of vulnerable man

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Portugal has also made extradition request for Diogo Santos Coelho, who is facing cybercrime charges

A high court judge has quashed a Home Office decision that paved the way for a vulnerable autistic man to be extradited to the US on cybercrime charges carrying a possible 52-year sentence.

The UK government has accepted that Diogo Santos Coelho, 25, a Portuguese national, was groomed and exploited online by adults from the age of 14, leading to him setting up the website RaidForums, to which the alleged crimes relate.

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Easey Street double murder and rape accused faces Melbourne court nearly 50 years after alleged attack

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Perry Kouroumblis was extradited from Italy and charged over the 1977 deaths of Suzanne Armstrong and Susan Bartlett

An accused double murderer has faced a Melbourne court close to five decades after police allege he stabbed two women to death in a frenzied attack.

Perry Kouroumblis, 65, appeared bleary-eyed as he sat in the dock of the Melbourne magistrates court on Wednesday after arriving on Australian soil on Tuesday night.

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Kim Dotcom to be extradited from New Zealand to US

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Justice minister signs extradition order for Megaupload founder 12 years after FBI-ordered raid over filesharing site

Kim Dotcom, who is facing criminal charges relating to the defunct filesharing website Megaupload, is to be extradited to the US, the New Zealand justice minister says, which could end more than a decade of legal wrangling.

German-born Dotcom has New Zealand residency and has been fighting extradition to the US since 2012 after an FBI-ordered raid on his Auckland mansion. The high court in New Zealand first approved his extradition in 2017, with an appeal court reaffirming the finding the year after. In 2020, the country’s supreme court again affirmed the finding but opened the door for a fresh round of judicial review.

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From a plea deal to a 2am prison call: how Julian Assange finally gained freedom

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A lawyer’s offer, a judgment that foretold years of legal wrangling, and diplomatic pressure all played a part in the release of the WikiLeaks founder

• Julian Assange released from prison – live updates

It was, as his friends described it, the “last kick of the British establishment”. At 2am on Monday, Julian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks, was woken in his small cell in the high-security Belmarsh prison, south-east London, and ordered to dress before being put in handcuffs.

It was the beginning of the end of Assange’s incarceration in Britain but it was going to be on his jailers’ terms.

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Vulnerable man pleads with UK government to block extradition to US

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Diogo Santos Coelho from Portugal faces a 52-year sentence for alleged cybercrime relating to RaidForums site

A vulnerable autistic man is pleading with the UK government to block his extradition to the US on cybercrime charges where he faces a 52-year sentence for alleged offending that began when he was a child.

Diogo Santos Coelho, who has been assessed as at very high risk of suicide, said he had been groomed and exploited online by adults from the age of 14 into committing the alleged crimes, which relate to the website RaidForums.

In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is at 988 or chat for support. You can also text HOME to 741741 to connect with a crisis text line counselor. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org

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Asio cleared of unlawfully luring Daniel Duggan back to Australia, agency chief Mike Burgess says

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Exclusive: Duggan’s legal team continues to fight US request for extradition on charges of arms trafficking and money laundering

The spy agency Asio says it has been cleared by the intelligence watchdog of allegations of impropriety raised by the Australian citizen Daniel Duggan as he fights extradition to the US.

Duggan, a former US marines pilot accused of training Chinese pilots to land fighter jets on aircraft carriers, had complained to the inspector general of intelligence and security (IGIS) about Asio’s role in securing his return to Australia from China.

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US government lawyers deny charges against Julian Assange politically motivated

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WikiLeaks founder named sources and encouraged theft and hacking, say lawyers at extradition hearing in London

Criminal charges were brought against Julian Assange because he named sources and encouraged theft and hacking, not because of politics, lawyers for the US government have claimed at a critical extradition hearing.

The WikiLeaks founder could be extradited to the US within days to face prosecution on espionage charges relating to the publication of thousands of classified military and diplomatic documents concerning the Afghanistan and Iraq wars if the high court in London refuses him permission to appeal against his removal from the UK.

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French Holocaust denier found in Fife loses extradition fight

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Vincent Reynouard discovered living double life in Scottish village where he worked as a tutor, reports say

A Holocaust denier who was arrested in a Scottish fishing village will be extradited back to France after spending two years on the run from the authorities.

Vincent Reynouard lost his extradition battle after his arrest in November 2022. He had been discovered living a double life in Anstruther, Fife, where he worked as a private tutor, according to reports.

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Daniel Duggan asks to be released from jail and detained at home as he fights extradition to US

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Australian pilot accused of training Chinese military denies he is a flight risk in letter requesting NSW home detention

An Australian pilot accused of accepting cash to illegally train Chinese military personnel has denied he is a flight risk and described himself as a model prisoner in a formal request to be released into home detention.

Daniel Duggan has written to the acting New South Wales corrections commissioner from Lithgow maximum security prison where he is being held in isolated custody while he fights extradition to the US.

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Germany refuses to extradite man to UK over concerns about British jail conditions

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Court in Karlsruhe decides against extradition of Albanian man ‘in view of the state of the British prison system’

A German court has refused to extradite to the UK a man accused of drug trafficking because of concerns about prison conditions in Britain, in what is thought to be the first case of its kind.

The decision has been described as a “severe rebuke” and “an embarrassment for the UK” by a member of the Law Society.

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Suspect held in Netherlands over 1994 Rwandan genocide

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Dutch prosecutors say 64-year-old man accused of role in massacres arrested after extradition request

A Rwandan man has been arrested in the Netherlands based on an extradition request from Rwanda on suspicion that he was involved in the central African country’s 1994 genocide, Dutch prosecutors have said.

The 65-year-old man, who was not identified, has been living in the Netherlands since he was granted asylum there in 1999. He was arrested on Wednesday in the town of Ermelo, 44 miles east of Amsterdam.

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Honduras judge says ex-president Juan Orlando Hernández can be extradited to US

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Former first lady tells journalists her husband will be exonerated of profiting from drug trafficking

The former president of Honduras Juan Orlando Hernández should be extradited to the US to face drug trafficking and weapons charges, a Honduran judge has ruled.

The supreme court of justice in Honduras tweeted on Wednesday that it had decided to grant the US extradition request.

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Julian Assange wins first stage of attempt to appeal against extradition

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WikiLeaks co-founder is seeking to appeal against ruling that he can be sent to US to face espionage charges

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange will be able to go to the supreme court to challenge a decision allowing him to be extradited to the US.

However, the high court refused him permission for a direct appeal, meaning the supreme court will have to decide whether or not it should hear his challenge.

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Julian Assange could serve jail term in Australia, lawyer for the US tells London court

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The US is appealing to Britain’s high court over a refusal to extradite the WikiLeaks founder on espionage charges, saying he ‘has no history of serious and enduring mental illness’

US authorities have told British judges that if they agree to extradite Julian Assange on espionage charges, the WikiLeaks founder could serve any US prison sentence he receives in his native Australia.

In January, a lower UK court refused a US request to extradite Assange over WikiLeaks’ publication of secret US military documents a decade ago.

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Assange fiancee rejects US proposals over possible extradition

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Stella Moris says measures intended to keep her partner ‘in prison effectively for the rest of his life’

US assurances that Julian Assange would not be held under the strictest maximum-security conditions if extradited from the UK have been rejected by his fiancee, who described them as a formula to keep him in prison for the rest of his life.

Details of the proposals made to British authorities emerged after permission was granted this week to appeal against January’s ruling that the Wikileaks co-founder cannot be extradited on mental health grounds.

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Julian Assange refused bail despite judge ruling against extradition to US

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Judge says WikiLeaks co-founder ‘still has an incentive to abscond from these, as yet unresolved, proceedings’

Julian Assange has been refused bail by a judge who this week rejected a US request to have him extradited to face espionage and hacking charges.

The co-founder of WikiLeaks has been held at Belmarsh prison in south-east London for the past 18 months after he was evicted from the Ecuadorian embassy, where he sought asylum for seven years.

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Julian Assange to seek release from prison after extradition ruling

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Legal team for WikiLeaks co-founder expected to refer to Covid risk at Belmarsh prison

Julian Assange will make a fresh appeal to be released from prison this week after a British judge ruled that he cannot be extradited to the US to face charges of espionage and hacking government computers.

While district judge Vanessa Baraitser rejected arguments that Assange would not get a fair trial in the US, she blocked extradition on the basis that the WikiLeaks co-founder was at risk of taking his own life if he were to be held in isolation.

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