An Oslo City Court has ordered that Islamic cleric Mullah Krekar be kept in prison for as long as four weeks after his last-ditch attempt to block his extradition is settled. Norway’s police intelligence unit PST (Politiets sikkerhetstjeneste) had asked he be kept in custody for fear he’d try to avoid being extradited to Italy to face terrorism charges.
Norway’s Supreme Court refused to hear Krekar’s appeal of the extradition earlier this week, clearing the way for Norwegian authorities to finally send Krekar out of the country. He came to Norway as a refugee from Iraq in 1991 and has been in and out of court and prison for the past several years after being found to have made threats and pose a danger to national security.
His longtime Norwegian defense attorney Brynjar Meling claims he will keep fighting to block the extradition, claiming PST documents relating to the Italian case contained translation errors, that he’ll file a new civil complaint and take Krekar’s case to the international Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. “I can’t stop believing that we, in the end, will get a correct decision in this case,” Meling told news bureau NTB. “I will keep fighting after Krekar is put on a plane, and after that also.”
Several legal experts have expressed, however, that Krekar is running out of legal options. Meling can delay the extradition, given that Krekar has three weeks in which to file a civil complaint. It must then be handled by King Harald at the Council of State, where it’s likely to be denied, but that’s unlikely to take place until early January, after the Christmas and New Year holidays.
newsinenglish.no staff
