LONDON - The European Court of Human Rights ruled Tuesday that Britain could legally extradite five suspects wanted in the United States on terrorism charges, including Abu Hamza al-Masri, an inflammatory Egyptian-born cleric incarcerated in Britain but accused in a range of anti-American plots that date back 14 years.
In a major precedent that appeared to greatly ease extradition of terrorism suspects - an issue that has surfaced repeatedly since Britain and the United States agreed to a new, more flexible extradition treaty after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks - the court ruled that the human rights of the defendants would not be violated by their prospective captivity in a maximum-security US prison. Some legal specialists called the ruling stunning, considering the court’s history of wariness toward the human rights standards of US justice....
The European ruling surprised many in Britain, breaking as it did with a pattern of the court voiding extradition proceedings in Britain and other European countries on human rights grounds.
Translation: the court caved to politics.
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