European court rules extradition of alleged British jihadi to US was lawful

http://www.theguardian.com/law/2015/jan/29/european-court-extradtion-british-jihadi-us-haroon-aswat

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The extradition of a mentally ill British suspect to face trial in the US for running a jihadi training camp was lawful, the European court of human rights has ruled.

Haroon Aswat, who had paranoid schizophrenia, was flown to the US last October. It is alleged he conspired with the extremist preacher Abu Hamza in 1999 to establish a terror camp in Oregon. Aswat, 40, from Dewsbury, West Yorkshire, had alleged that his removal was based on inadequate assurances from US officials about his treatment, and therefore breached article 3 (prohibition of inhuman or degrading treatment) of the European convention on human rights.

But the Strasbourg court unanimously dismissed his claim as inadmissible, describing it as “manifestly ill-founded”.

Aswat, who was originally arrested in 2005, was held at Broadmoor psychiatric hospital before he was sent to the US. He subsequently appeared in a New York court, where he pleaded not guilty to four terrorism charges.

Initial attempts to extradite Aswat had been blocked in April 2013 by ECHR judges solely on the grounds of the severity of his illness and that there were insufficient guarantees about the accommodation and treatment available to him under detention in the US.

That reservation was eventually lifted by the Strasbourg court. “In light of the specific assurances and additional information received from the United States’ government, and the careful examination of the case by the high court in the United Kingdom, the [ECHR] found that it could not be said that there was a real risk that Mr Aswat would be subjected to treatment contrary to article 3 if extradited,” the judgment explained.

“In considering Mr Aswat’s specific complaints,” it added, “the court found that the assurances given by the United States government ensured that Mr Aswat would be given treatment appropriate to his mental health needs.

“The court found that there was no persuasive evidence before it to suggest that he would not receive adequate treatment in the United States to control his mental illness, or that he would be detained in circumstances which would place him at risk of a mental health relapse so as to render his extradition in breach of article 3.”

Aswat had also complained that he would be shackled during his transfer to the US. The ECHR observed that any “recourse to shackling would not result in a significant deterioration in his mental and physical health or that such a deterioration would be capable of reaching the article 3 threshold”.