Madrid, Spain \u2013 The wife of a pro-Palestine philanthropist who faces extradition to the United States has urged the Spanish prime minister to grant him asylum, to save him from being sent to his own country.<\/p>\n
James \u201cFergie\u201d Chambers, a US citizen with a reported $250m net worth, has been charged with money laundering.<\/p>\n
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The US government\u2019s case centres on Chambers\u2019s alleged laundering of $7.5m, which he is said to have wired several years ago from a US bank account to Tunisia, where he lived at the time, allegedly using the cash to support Hamas. He is not charged with any \u201cterrorism\u201d offences and denies any wrongdoing.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am pleading with [Spanish Prime Minister Pedro] Sanchez to use his powers to ensure Fergie\u2019s political asylum claim is expedited for urgent consideration by the panel of ministers,\u201d his wife Stella Schnabel told Al Jazeera. \u201cIf [Sanchez] chooses not to act, he risks enabling [US President Donald] Trump to establish a precedent in Spain and across Europe which criminalises solidarity with the Palestinian people.\u201d<\/p>\n
Schnabel says that the money was to support Club Africain, a Tunisian football club, to pay off its debts and overdue salaries, to reconstruct a training centre and build pitches for youth sides.<\/p>\n
Spain\u2019s National Court will hear evidence from the US authorities on Friday, and a final decision will be made later.<\/p>\n
Chambers, a self-proclaimed anti-imperialist, is also facing charges of riot and conspiracy to riot relating to a protest at an Israeli arms company in 2023 in the US, for which he could face up to 30 years of imprisonment.<\/p>\n
Chambers was arrested in July in Ibiza as he and his partner, Schnabel, an actress, searched for a school for their son, after Interpol issued a Red Notice for his detention. Since his arrest, he has claimed asylum, alleging he is the victim of political persecution.<\/p>\n
Chambers cannot be extradited until the asylum claim is resolved, and if it is successful, he cannot be extradited.<\/p>\n
\u2018There is no evidence\u2019<\/p>\n
Lawyers for Chambers said mistranslations between the US criminal charge in English and the version presented to Spanish authorities in Spanish make the allegations seem more serious.<\/p>\n
Under Spanish law, all extradition requests must be translated into Spanish.<\/p>\n
The alleged mistranslations, which relate to protests in 2003 in the United States that targeted the US-based facilities of Elbit Systems, Israel\u2019s largest weapons manufacturer, changed \u201cdirect action\u201d to \u201cdirect violence\u201d.<\/p>\n
Lawyers also said there is no reference to violence in the original US criminal complaint, but the translated version submitted to Spanish authorities mentions \u201cthree fires\u201d even though no fires are mentioned in the original text.<\/p>\n
US authorities also changed the description of protesters\u2019 \u201cactivation\u201d of smoke canisters to \u201cdetonation\u201d, which, defence lawyers say, is usually used to describe an explosive device, not the release of smoke canisters.<\/p>\n
The most serious mistranslation, say defence lawyers, involved a conversation between third parties that in the original criminal complaint described Chambers as being part of a \u201cglobal terrorism game\u201d.<\/p>\n
However, in the translated version submitted to Spanish authorities, this phrase is changed to \u201cglobal terrorism activities\u201d. Chambers has not been charged with any \u201cterrorism\u201d offences.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s important to highlight that the US administration has not charged Fergie with material support for or financing terrorism or any terror-related offences, nor presented a shred of evidence that even a single cent has been used for violent or terrorist acts,\u201d Aitor Martinez, one of the defence lawyers, told Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe reason not to charge him with those offences is clear: there is no evidence.\u201d<\/p>\n
If the court backs the US extradition request, defence lawyers for Chambers will appeal, dragging the case on longer.<\/p>\n
However, the Spanish government\u2019s Council of Ministers may have the last word on the case and could refuse to send him to the US if they believe the case is politically motivated.<\/p>\n
The situation is complicated by the fact that Spain is holding an early election on November 29, which, according to the polls, the conservative People\u2019s Party is likely to win, potentially requiring the support of the far-right Vox party.<\/p>\n
Both right-wing parties may be more inclined to support extraditing Chambers than Spain\u2019s Socialist prime minister Sanchez, an outspoken critic of Trump\u2019s support for Israel\u2019s genocidal war in Gaza.<\/p>\n
Chambers, 46, is heir to the Cox family, owners of the Atlanta-based Cox Communications. As part of a deal in which his family cut ties with him at the time, he sold stock back to his family worth about $250m in 2003.<\/p>\n
Since then, he has funded about 100 projects in 20 countries, Schnabel said.<\/p>\n
The US Department of Justice declined to comment when contacted by Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n
Two of the three charges in the US complaint \u2013 riot and conspiracy to riot \u2013 are related to allegations that he funded the legal fees of activists arrested in the 2003 protests against Elbit.<\/p>\n
Chambers has commented publicly on Israel and Gaza.<\/p>\n
In the wake of the 2023 Hamas attacks on Israel, he posted on X about Israel\u2019s response: \u201cStop calling it \u2018collective punishment\u2019\/There\u2019s nothing to be punished 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
On the day of the court hearing, demonstrations will be held in support of\u00a0 Chambers outside Spanish embassies in London, Brussels. Amsterdam and Tunisia, where Chambers lived for some time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Madrid, Spain \u2013 The wife of a pro-Palestine philanthropist who faces extradition to the United States has urged…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":915182,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,2302,1076,5618,2563,3,3662,21,19,22,20,25,1209,24],"class_list":["post-915181","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-courts","tag-europe","tag-gaza","tag-israel-palestine-conflict","tag-news","tag-spain","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-us-canada","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/915181","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=915181"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/915181\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/915182"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=915181"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=915181"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=915181"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}