The court agrees with the Police Security Service that Mullah Krekar and a 42 year old Iraqi may be extradited to Italy. Krekar will appeal the decision.
The case was decided by the court on Wednesday, but Krekar’s counsel Brynjar Meling immediately gave notice that he will appeal the decision.
– The District Court has been wrong before and will be wrong again. This decision will be appealed, he says to the newspaper VG.
Meling has accused the Police Security Service (PST) of passively accepting the Italian allegations that the mullah and an Iraqi, who lives in Drammen, are part of an international terrorist network called Rawti SHAX.
– We note that the court has made a thorough assesment of the case and concluded that the conditions for extradition have been met. We take note of this, PST police attorney Signe Kathrine Aalling says in a brief comment on the ruling.
– A dastardly game
Aalling said in her final speech at the Oslo District Court that although the security service don’t have immediate access to all of the material of the Italian investigation , they think that the material meets the conditions for extradition of the two peope.
– I think and believe that this is a dastardly game where you are supposed to solve the Krekar problem by extraditing him to Italy, Meling says.
He believes Judge Jannicke Johannesen was mislead by PST, who withheld evidence at the hearing. He also believes that PST would have chosen to conduct a judicial process against Mullah Krekar themselves, if they believed that the claims in which the Italian authorities have based its charges were true.
On the night of November 12 last year, Krekar and a number of men in several other countries in Europe, were arrested in a coordinated action ordered by the Italian police. Italian authorities claim that Krekar, whose real name is Najmuddin Faraj Ahmad,is the leader of the network Rawti SHAX and demand his extradition.
Oslo District Court started handling the extradition petition on 9 June. When an appeal can be handled by the Crown Court, is unclear.
-I will be busy working on other cases throughout the fall, lawyer Meling says.
Source: NTB scanpix / Norway Today
