Extradition Of Terror Suspects Founders

Bombings at the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi, above, and the embassy in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, led to the arrest of three suspects in Britain a decade ago. Two are still in prison there; one died this year. (By Dave Caulkin -- Associated Press)

In 2005, after British journalists inquired about Fawwaz's status, the Home Office issued a written statement saying that "the overall process has taken longer than was ever anticipated." The statement also implicitly blamed Washington for the delay, noting that U.S. officials had taken two years to respond to one key British request for information.

The U.S. Justice Department declined a request to interview officials about the case. In a written response to questions, Dean Boyd, a spokesman for the department's national security division, said the U.S. government "has been vigorously pursuing" the extradition of Fawwaz and Abdel Bary and "will continue to use all available means" to bring them to trial.

Akhtar Raja, a London-based attorney for Fawwaz, declined to comment. Fawwaz and Abdel Bary did not respond to letters sent to them in prison.

A 'Cumbersome' System

Other governments have complained about Britain's lengthy extradition proceedings. French officials are still bitter about the 10 years it took for Britain to extradite Rachid Ramda, an Algerian later convicted of financing deadly bomb attacks on the Paris Metro system in 1995.

After the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington, the British government acknowledged the problems and pledged to fix them. In a 2003 interview with The Washington Post, then-Home Secretary David Blunkett called his country's laws "outdated and arcane."

"There's no good in having a good extradition arrangement with another country if your own internal process is so cumbersome and slow you can't actually implement it," he said. That year, Britain negotiated a new extradition treaty with the United States and later approved a new law designed to "fast track" extraditions to several countries.

Progress, however, has been slow. The new treaty was not approved by the U.S. Senate until 2006 and did not go into effect until last year. "The whole thing is a mess," said Geoff Gilbert, a law professor at the University of Essex.

Meanwhile, British defense lawyers have come up with new strategies. They have argued that conditions in U.S. "supermax" prisons, where many convicted terrorists are held, violate the European Convention on Human Rights. They have also argued that holding a trial in federal court in New York would be unfair, because jurors in the region would be prejudiced by the attacks on the World Trade Center.

Other common objections: that evidence against the defendants was obtained by torturing other suspects; that the United States could send the men to Guantanamo or a military brig instead of prosecuting them in civilian courts; and that once on U.S. soil they could be rendered to another country by the CIA.

U.S. officials have denied the torture accusations. They have also promised in writing that the suspects will be tried only in federal court and will not get the death penalty.

But British defense lawyers, as well as some lawmakers, have argued that the U.S. government cannot be trusted to keep its word. In July, a House of Commons committee issued a report saying that the British government could no longer accept assurances from Washington that it does not practice torture. If such a policy is implemented, human rights laws could prevent Britain from extraditing any suspects to the United States.

"We can't blindly keep going on, saying, 'Our ally is our ally,' " said Peirce, the attorney for Abdel Bary. "America may be our most trusted ally, but we have a duty to look at what's been done in the name of the law in the war on terror."

Staff researcher Julie Tate in Washington contributed to this report.