Belgium secretly extradites Nizar Trabelsi to the US without waiting for ECHR ruling CagePrisoners strongly condemns the secret extradition of Nizar Trabelsi from Belgium to the US. The European Court of Human Rights had suspended his extradition until it issues its decision at the end of this month. Nevertheless, the Belgian Minister of Justice chose not to wait for the ECHR decision and secretly extradited Mr Trabelsi to the US. The Belgian authorities informed the media but did not bother to inform his wife and lawyers. His wife, Oum Maryam said: “I learnt about his extradition through a journalist. I called his lawyers to ask for an update, they had no idea this happened.” Nizar Trabelsi, a Tunisian national, was arrested in 2001 and controversially sentenced to ten years of prison on terrorism allegations. He served his sentence in solitary confinement, completely ostracised from the outside world despite numerous medical reports highlighting its damaging effects on mental state. His prison conditions have been described as torture by Juan Mendez, the UN rapporteur on torture. Though the US had requested his extradition in 2008, there is no evidence that the allegations he faces in the US are any different from those he has already been sentenced to in Belgium. As a result, Nizar Trabelsi is likely to be tried twice for exactly the same allegations and spend the rest of his life in solitary confinement. Moazzam Begg said: “This extradition is a travesty of justice which comes after ten years of inhumane treatment. More than the disregard for an individual, it reveals the deceit of the Belgian authorities which chose to purposely disregard the principles and mechanisms they claim the country was based upon.”
Posted on: Thu, 03 Oct 2013 21:05:18 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015