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Al Qaeda's extradition strategy

Times:

THE protracted process of extraditing Osama bin Laden’s London lieutenant to the United States is close to its conclusion, The Times has learnt.

Khalid al-Fawwaz, who has been charged in the United States over the 1998 East Africa embassy suicide bombings that killed 224 people, has been fighting extradition for seven years.

But according to a Home Office report, obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, Mr Fawwaz’s lawyers have been given a deadline by which they must submit last-ditch pleas against his surrender to the American authorities.

Charles Clarke, the Home Secretary, will then decide if Mr Fawwaz, a Saudi and personal friend of bin Laden, can be handed over. Mr Clarke faces pressure to make a decision in the long-running case, which is proving an embarrassment for the Government.

After the London bombings in July, Tony Blair promised to speed up extradition in terror cases by setting a maximum time limit. While Mr Fawwaz’s case has dragged on for seven years, a man wanted by France over terrorist bombings has been in jail here for a decade.

Mr Fawwaz, 41, ran al- Qaeda’s media office in London for four years, disseminating statements and fatwas. The claim of responsibility for the embassy bombs was allegedly transmitted to his associates by fax hours before the attacks.

While many of the Islamist have fought removal from the UK, one of the bus bombers who fled to Italy fought extradition back to the UK. There is apparently a deliberate strategy of thwarting the lawfare approach to fighting al Qaeda by tying the legal system in knots that frustrate the ends of justice. Unfortunately in the UK they seem to have many coconspiritors in the judicial system who also want to thwart justice.