"Court: UK must not extradite terror suspects to US," is the AP report written by Robert Weilaard via Google News.
An international court on Thursday ordered Britain to hold off on extraditing four terrorism suspects to the United States, saying it must show that life terms without parole in maximum security prisons would not violate Europe's human rights charter.
The suspects include three Britons and the Egyptian-born radical cleric Mustafa Kamal Mustafa — also known as Abu Hamza al-Masri, the one-eyed, hook-handed hardliner accused of setting up a terrorist training camp in rural Oregon.
The European Court of Human Rights gave Britain until Sept. 2 to respond to questions about the punishment they will face.
If convicted of charges filed between 2004 and 2006, they could get lifelong jail terms without parole in maximum security conditions, including concrete furniture, timed showers, tiny cell windows and no communications with the outside world.
And:
Europe and the United States have long disagreed on the merit of the death penalty. Thursday's ruling opens a new front, this one over the U.S. practice of putting convicted criminals in spartan, maximum security prisons for the rest of their lives.
It is now up to Britain, presumably in collaboration with U.S. legal experts, to show it is not cruel or degrading.
After the four exhausted their appeals against extradition in British courts, they turned to the Strasbourg, France-based court.
They argued incarceration in the U.S. will be so long and harsh it would amount to a violation of article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights of 1950. The article says, "No one shall be subjected to torture or to inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment."
And:
The 70-page ruling cites the harsh conditions at a maximum security prison in Florence, Colorado, where the suspects will likely be sent, if convicted. Human Rights Watch, the New York-based rights group, has said the prison's conditions violate U.S. international treaty obligations.
The court is an arm of the 47-nation Council of Europe, Europe's premier human rights watchdog. Its judgment are binding on members.
Related posts are in the foreign citizen and international law indexes.
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