Al Qaeda suspect's extradition OK'd

January 06, 2006|Thomas Wagner, Associated Press

LONDON -- A British court cleared the way yesterday for the government to extradite a suspected Al Qaeda member to the United States after receiving assurances he would not be tried in a military court on charges of plotting to set up a terrorist training camp in Oregon.

The US government gave the court a note guaranteeing British citizen Haroon Rashid Aswat, 31, would be tried by a federal court and would not be designated an ''enemy combatant."

Washington has used that label to indefinitely hold hundreds of terror suspects without charge at a detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

''Whilst the note does not provide any personal protection to this defendant, I am satisfied that it does bind the government of the United States of America, which in these terms includes the president," Judge Timothy Workman said in his ruling at Bow Street magistrates court.

British Home Secretary Charles Clarke has two months to approve the extradition.

The defense had argued that Aswat should not be extradited because he would face an ''overwhelming risk" of being held in solitary confinement without trial, cut off from his friends, family, and attorneys.

Aswat's lawyer, Paul Bowen, said he would appeal the ruling to the High Court.

Aswat was arrested in Lusaka, Zambia, on July 20 in connection with the July 7 transit bombings in London, in which four suicide bombers killed 52 commuters.

At earlier court hearings, it was alleged that he had been to a training camp in Afghanistan and met Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.