LONDON -- A lawyer has urged a British court to extradite a suspected al-Qaida member to the United States so he can be tried for allegedly plotting to set up a terrorist training camp in Oregon.
Attorney Hugo Keith told the court that the U.S. government has reassured the extradition hearing in writing that the British defendant would be tried at a U.S. federal court, not a military tribunal, and that he would not be designated an "enemy combatant," a label the U.S. government has used to detain suspected terrorists at military detention centers such as Guantanamo Bay.
But the defense argued Thursday that Briton Haroon Rashid Aswat, 31, should not be extradited to the United States because he would face an "overwhelming risk" of being held in solitary confinement without trial, cut off from his friends, family and attorneys.
After a full-day hearing, Judge Timothy Workman delayed his ruling until Jan. 5.
Federal prosecutors in New York have charged several men in the alleged conspiracy to set up the terrorist training camp in Oregon with members of a now-defunct Seattle mosque. They include Aswat and Egyptian-born preacher Abu Hamza Al-Masri (also known as Mustafa Kamel Mustafa), who are being detained in England while awaiting possible extradition, and Oussama Kassir, 39, a Lebanese-born Swede who recently was arrested in the Czech Republic. Kassir is detained in Prague as the United States pursues his extradition.
The U.S. complaint alleges that the men conspired beginning in 1999 to establish a training camp in Bly, Ore., that would teach military-style jihad, or holy war, methods so a community of Muslims could move to Afghanistan to fight or to be further trained there. Authorities in Oregon have said the camp never materialized beyond a dozen people taking target practice.
[Blocked Ads] The complaint refers to a letter faxed from one conspirator to another saying that the Bly property was in a "pro-militia and firearms state" that "looks just like Afghanistan" and that the group was "stockpiling weapons and ammunition." One of the men from the Dar-us-Salaam mosque in Seattle, James Ujaama, cooperated with U.S. authorities in exchange for a shorter sentence. Ujaama served two years in prison for aiding the Taliban.During Thursday's extradition hearing at Bow Street magistrates court in London, the defense relied heavily on the testimony of Thomas Loflin, a U.S. lawyer from Durham, N.C.
Loflin said the U.S. government's assurance about how Aswat would be prosecuted in America was not legally binding on President George W. Bush.
"Under the terms of the Presidential Military Order, he, and he alone, is the only official in the U.S. government who has the decision whether or not to designate a non-citizen as an enemy combatant," said Loflin.
He also said that Ujaama reached a plea bargain agreement with U.S. attorneys after they threatened him with penalties such as solitary confinement and severe limitations on his freedom to meet with his lawyers and hold confidential discussions with them.
Aswat was arrested in Zambia on July 20 in connection with the July 7 bombings in London, in which four suspected suicide bombers killed 52 transit passengers.
During Thursday's court hearing, Keith questioned Loflin's reliability as a witness, saying he had failed to inform the British court that earlier this year he had pleaded guilty to a charge of failing to file a North Carolina state tax return, and had been fined and given a suspended jail sentence.
Aswat, a thin man with long black hair and a beard, watched the court session from the back of the courtroom under police guard.
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