UK-European Court of Human Rights: The European Court of Human Rights on 8 July halted the extradition of radical preacher Abu Hamza and three other men to the United States on terror charges. The court said the possible length of US jail terms—life without parole—raised concerns about breaches of the European human rights code and needed further examination before a final ruling.It used to be that there would no extradition due to the US having the death penalty. Now it is long prison terms. Maybe those who believe in using murder (and other forms of terror) to pursue their religious or political views lose their ardor later in life and can be safely turned loose into society. Or maybe not.
Hamza, whose full name is Mustafa Kamal Mustafa, is wanted on terror charges in the US. The three other men facing extradition are Babar Ahmad, Syed Talha Ahsan, and Haroon Rashid Aswat. Ahmad, a 36-year old computer expert, has been in a UK prison without trial for nearly six years, refused bail since his arrest in August 2004 on a US extradition warrant.
This is an extraordinary perversion of the notion of justice, as understood in the Anglo-Germanic world. In the EU Court's interpretation, the nation-states must prove the fairness of their system of dispensing justice, over the heinous nature of the criminal's behavior. This is tantamount to turning the world upside down in that the dead have no advocate and the accused has more protections than those he killed.
The UK went along with this decision.
Regards — Cliff
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Please be forthright, but please consider that this is not a barracks.