JURIST - Paper Chase: Dutch citizen to be extradited to US for Iraqi insurgency terror trial

[JURIST] A court in the Netherlands [JURIST news archive] has approved the extradition of a Dutch national to the United States to face trial for conspiring to participate in insurgent attacks on US troops in the Iraqi city of Fallujah in 2003. Wesam al Delaema [DOJ press release] will be the first person tried in a US federal court for participating in the Iraqi insurgency. If convicted on the conspiracy charges [DOJ press release; JURIST report], he faces life in prison and may be permitted to serve his sentence in the Netherlands.

Al Delaema's lawyers argued that the US did not have jurisdiction to try their client and that the American legal system cannot be trusted, but a Dutch court ruled Tuesday that there is no reason to believe that US authorities would deprive al Delaema of his fundamental rights. US officials seized video evidence of al Delaema preparing to make a roadside bomb in support of the insurgency group "Warriors of Fallujah," but al Delaema maintains he was forced to make the video after being kidnapped and beaten. AP has more.

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