Babar Ahmad - Extradition To The United States

Extradition To The United States

On the 8 July 2010, the European Court of Human Rights of the Council of Europe, at Strasbourg, imposed a temporary stay of execution on the extradition of Ahmad et al. to the United States to face terrorism charges, until the Court was satisfied that he would not be liable or subject inhumane treatment. The Court based its judgment on the European Convention on Human Rights, which is incorporated as the Human Rights Act 1998 in English and British law. In past cases, the ECtHR had ruled to prevent the United Kingdom and the British Government from deporting, extraditing or repatriating terrorism suspects to other countries, where they would be subject or liable to, or where there was a likelihood that they would be subject or liable to, torture, or to degrading or inhumane treatment.

In Babar Ahmad and Others v The United Kingdom and in Abu Hamza (Mustafa Kamel Mustafa) and others v Secretary of State for the Home Department, the legal representatives of the litigants, or the claimants, applicants or petitioners, argued that extradition to a country, where they might be imprisoned for life, with no possibility of release on parole, and where the penal regime is in comparison excessively harsh, amounted also to degrading or inhumane treatment, and that the extradition therefore ought to be refused. The ECtHR, on the 10 April 2012, and the High Court, on the 5 October 2012, however, both ruled that Babar Ahmad, Abu Hamza (Mustafa Kamel Mustafa), et al., could nevertheless be lawfully extradited to the United States to face terrorism charges.

The "rendition", or removal process took place on the evening of the 5 October, when Babar Ahmad was taken from HM Prison Long Lartin, to RAF Mildenhall in Suffolk, which is used by the US Air Force, from where he, Talha Ahsan and the three other suspects also wanted for extradition by the American authorities, were placed into the physical custody of the awaiting United States Marshals. They landed in Connecticut on the morning of the 6 October.

On 6 October 2012, Ahmad pleaded not guilty of conspiracy to support terrorists in Afghanistan and the Russian region of Chechnya in a Connecticut court.