{"id":909203,"date":"2026-11-07T15:14:10","date_gmt":"2026-11-07T15:14:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/909203\/"},"modified":"2026-11-07T15:14:10","modified_gmt":"2026-11-07T15:14:10","slug":"trump-administration-accused-of-altering-translation-of-request-to-extradite-wealthy-leftwing-activist-us-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/909203\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump administration accused of altering translation of request to extradite wealthy leftwing activist | US news"},"content":{"rendered":"

Attorneys for jailed wealthy leftwing donor James \u201cFergie\u201d Chambers accused the Trump administration<\/a> of making \u201cmalicious\u201d and \u201cbad faith\u201d changes to legally required translations from English to Spanish in its extradition request to Spain, adding words like \u201cviolent\u201d, \u201cdetonate\u201d and \u201cfires\u201d that are not in the original text.<\/p>\n

Chambers\u2019 legal team also identified multiple instances where the US translation from English to Spanish created more serious legal accusations against Chambers than were indicated in the original text for his alleged involvement in paying the legal fees of activists who participated in a 2023 protest against Israeli weapons manufacturer Elbit Systems.<\/p>\n

Chambers\u2019 case is the first known instance of the US seeking to extradite a citizen over alleged support for Hamas, an accusation apparently tied to a money laundering charge and donations Chambers has made to support Palestinians, including the Sameer Project<\/a>, in Gaza.<\/p>\n

The attorneys have filed a last-minute request to the National Court of Spain<\/a> asking for a new translation and for the court to recognize the \u201cbad faith\u201d actions of the US, after also learning this week that Chambers\u2019 extradition hearing has been scheduled for 13 November.<\/p>\n

The Guardian has seen the 21-page request, filed Tuesday. It includes multiple, detailed examples of what the legal defense team calls a \u201ctranslation [that] has fictitiously added incriminating acts, in presumed bad faith\u201d.<\/p>\n

The goal, the attorneys assert, is \u201cto lead Spanish authorities to commit errors in evaluating the facts [of the case] and in deciding about the extradition\u201d.<\/p>\n

Both Spanish law and the extradition treaty between the US and Spain require extradition requests to be translated into Spanish by the requesting country.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is scandalous \u2013 in 20 years of practice, I\u2019ve never seen anything like this,\u201d said Aitor Mart\u00ednez, one of Chambers\u2019 lawyers, adding that the \u201cshameful\u201d translation joined a growing list of irregularities in the Trump administration\u2019s handling of the case \u2013 including the FBI taking Chambers\u2019 phone, in apparent violation of Spanish law and international extradition treaty, reported on<\/a> by the Guardian last month.<\/p>\n

The translations in question come from the criminal complaint and related documents underpinning the US extradition request.<\/p>\n

It was recently revealed<\/a> that there is no indictment behind the complaint, meaning the federal government hasn\u2019t had a grand jury evaluate evidence against Chambers and instead is seeking his extradition based on the affidavit of a single FBI agent, the basis for the sealed complaint.<\/p>\n

Two of the three charges in the complaint \u2013 riot and conspiracy to riot \u2013 are related to allegations that he helped fund the legal fees of activists arrested in the late-2023 protests against Elbit.<\/p>\n

The first example attorneys cite in the court filing concerns the protests. \u201cThroughout October and November 2023, multiple direct action events occurred at Elbit facilities, causing significant damage,\u201d reads the original in English.<\/p>\n

But then, in Spanish, those \u201cdirect action events\u201d become actos de violencia directo \u2013 or \u201cacts of direct violence\u201d.<\/p>\n

In another example, the original refers to three activists arrested at one of the protests, saying \u201cthe three caused significant damage to the building\u201d where Elbit Systems is located.<\/p>\n

The three activists become tres incendios, or three fires, in the Spanish translation.<\/p>\n

There is no mention of \u201cfires\u201d in the original text, because the protesters didn\u2019t set anything on fire, Mart\u00ednez told the Guardian.<\/p>\n

In a third example, activists spoke about \u201crisk[ing] arrest for trespassing\u201d. In Spanish, \u201ctrespassing\u201d becomes allanamiento de morada, which can also mean, variously, \u201cburglary\u201d or \u201cbreaking and entering\u201d \u2013 a more serious offense.<\/p>\n

Similarly, \u201cset off smoke canisters\u201d \u2013 the kind seen at football matches around the world \u2013 becomes detonaron botes de humo, the Spanish verb being \u201cdetonate\u201d, as one would with explosives.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn combination with the \u2026bad-faith introduction of the three fires, this reinforces the idea of an attack with explosives that is not in the English original,\u201d the attorneys write.<\/p>\n

Nicole Navas Oxman, a US Department of Justice spokesperson, declined to comment on the translations.<\/p>\n

Chambers has applied for political asylum in Spain. He cannot be extradited until the asylum case runs its course, and also cannot be extradited if he is granted asylum. His legal team has also notified the government office evaluating his asylum petition of the incident.<\/p>\n

A self-described communist and anti-imperialist, Chambers is also heir of the Cox family, owners of Atlanta-based Cox Enterprises. As part of a settlement in which his family severed ties with him at the time, he sold stock back to his family worth about $250m in mid-2023. Since then, he has been funding an estimated 100 progressive and humanitarian projects in 20 countries, according to his partner, activist and actor Stella Schnabel.<\/p>\n

Chambers\u2019s views and donations have been extensively profiled <\/a>in US media, including his public comments on Israel and Gaza. A week after the 7 October 2023 Hamas attacks on Israel, he posted <\/a>on X about Israel\u2019s response: \u201cStop calling it \u2018collective punishment\u2019\/There\u2019s nothing to be \u2018punished\u2019 for\/No faction of the Palestinian resistance, Hamas or other, has done *anything* wrong\/It\u2019s simply genocide\/Like it has been.\u201d<\/p>\n

After next week\u2019s hearing, the Spanish court has three days to decide whether to extradite Chambers. If the decision is affirmative, the Spanish council of ministers can weigh in and even reverse the court\u2019s decision.<\/p>\n

This means Chambers\u2019 extradition may be one of the last decisions made under Pedro S\u00e1nchez, the socialist prime minister, before national elections on 29 November.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s been a lot of irregularities already,\u201d Mart\u00ednez said. \u201cSpain has to say, \u2018You can\u2019t ridicule the Spanish justice system any longer.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Attorneys for jailed wealthy leftwing donor James \u201cFergie\u201d Chambers accused the Trump administration of making \u201cmalicious\u201d and \u201cbad…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":909204,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,3,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":["post-909203","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-news","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/909203","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=909203"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/909203\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/909204"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=909203"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=909203"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=909203"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}