Prague, June 23 (CTK) – An appeals court has cancelled the Prague City Court’s verdict that permitted the extradition of three suspected terrorist aides, saying the USA has not provided guarantees that the suspects would not be maltreated in prison, Prague City Court spokeswoman Marketa Puci told CTK yesterday.
In April, the Prague City Court ruled that Ali Fayad, Faouzi Jaber and Khaled Marabi may be extradited to the United States. But the Prague High Court complied with the appeals of the suspects who said they feared that they would be treated in an inhuman way in U.S. prisons.
As a result, the Prague City Court will have to call on the USA to provide additional guarantees.
The Prague High Court said U.S. federal judges would not be obliged to keep the promise that American authorities gave to the Czech Republic as such a promise is not binding for the Federal Bureau of Prisons.
The U.S. authorities said the three suspected terrorist aides would stay in prison in standard conditions, which would be checked by diplomats.
The Czech appeals court said the issue needs to be clarified in detail. It also ordered the lower level court to deal with the question of whether the suspected crimes were committed on the initiative of the suspects or whether they were provoked by U.S. federal agents.
U.S. agents started to monitor Jaber and Marabi, both from Ivory Coast, in 2012. The agents pretended negotiating a transfer of cocaine to the USA and a purchase of weapons that would be used to attack U.S. units in Colombia. Jaber then addressed Fayad, a Lebanese with Ukrainian citizenship working for the Ukrainian state armament company Ukrspetsexport.
The agents met the suspects in Ghana, then in Warsaw and finally in a hotel in Prague where the three were arrested by the police in April 2014.
Jaber, Marabi and Fayad have been in Czech custody for 14 months now.
The USA has accused the trio of conspiracy aimed to provide material support to a terrorist organisation. Jaber and Marabi are also suspected of conspiracy aimed at money laundering and sale of cocaine, and Jaber and Fayad of a conspiracy aimed at gaining and selling the ground-air rockets and at killing U.S. officers and employees.
The extradition of Jaber, Marabi and Fayad requires the consent from the Czech justice minister.
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