Legal News

The European court of human rights has cleared the path for the extradition of Abu Hamza al-Masri and Babar Ahmad, after legal battles which lasted over eight years.
The decision was immediately welcomed by the home secretary, Theresa May, who said the Home Office would work to hand over the five to the US authorities as quickly as possible.
The home secretary would remember the confusion that delayed the removal of Abu Qatada to Jordan earlier this year. The five suspects would be put on a plane to the US within weeks.
The suspects involved include the radical cleric Abu Hamza, 54, who is wanted by the US in connection with plans to establish a terrorist training camp in Bly, Oregon, as well as allegations that he provided material support to the Taliban. He is also wanted in connection with allegations that he was involved in hostage-taking in Yemen in 1998.
Hamza, who has lost one eye and a hand, possibly fighting Soviet troops in Afghanistan, was first arrested in London at the request of the US in 2004. But his extradition was halted after he was jailed for incitement offences relating to his sermons at the Finsbury Park mosque in London.
A panel of five human rights judges sitting in Strasbourg rejected appeals to the court's grand chamber from the five suspects and confirmed an earlier ruling which said that their human rights would not be violated by the prospect of life sentences and solitary confinement in an American "supermax" prison.
All the suspects said they would face inhumane and degrading treatment if they were extradited to the US.
The other four suspects include Babar Ahmad, aged 37, who was first detained in 2004 and is one of the longest-held suspects in detention in Britain without facing trial.
A Home Office statement said the home secretary welcomes the decision not to refer the cases of Abu Hamza and four others to the grand chamber. This follows the judgment of the European court of human rights on 10 April to allow the extradition of these five terrorism suspects to the US.
He added that the home office would work to ensure that the individuals are handed over to the US authorities as quickly as possible.
But the family of Babar Ahmad called for him to be prosecuted in Britain. They said the judges' decision was largely irrelevant as the matter would never have got to this stage had the British police done their job almost nine years ago and provided the material seized from Babar's home to the Crown Prosecution Service, rather than secretly passing it to their US counterparts.
There is enormous public interest in Babar being prosecuted in the UK, as reflected by the fact that almost 150,000 members of the British public signed a government e-petition to this effect last year.