Posted on 06/27/2002 2:56:06 PM PDT by knighthawk
LONDON (AP) — Britain's High Court ruled Thursday against extraditing an Algerian man wanted for a series of bombings on the Paris subway, overturning a government decision to hand the suspect over to French authorities.
Rachid Ramda, an alleged member of Algeria's Armed Islamic Group, is wanted in France in connection with bombings in 1995 that killed 10 people and injured 180. The attacks terrorized France and put soldiers in the streets.
In the deadliest explosion, at the St. Michel metro station on July 25, 1995, eight people were killed and more than 30 were injured.
Ramda's lawyers argued there was a risk he would suffer ill-treatment if returned to France, in breach of his human rights.
They also said Boualem Bensaid, who identified Ramda as the group's paymaster, had made his statements after being beaten in French custody.
The High Court said Home Secretary David Blunkett must reconsider the case.
Blunkett agreed last fall to extradite Ramda to France, where he faces charges of conspiring to cause the explosions.
Judge Stephen Sedley said Blunkett had not given ``a properly reasoned response'' to at least two questions raised by Ramda's team.
``One is whether there was any investigation at all of the original complaint of ill-treatment of Bensaid,'' he said.
``The other is whether the French courts, given the record now available of their later decisions in relation to Bensaid, will now entertain any request by the claimant (Ramda) to exclude Bensaid's confessions.''
Ramda, 32, was arrested in Britain in 1997. He is alleged to have been the banker of the Armed Islamic Group which claimed responsibility for the bombing and for attacks at two other Paris metro stations in October 1995.
Two other suspects — alleged bomb expert Smain Ait Belkacem and Bensaid — were convicted and sentenced to 10 years in prison in September 1999 for ``criminal association in relation with a terrorist enterprise,'' a broad charge used by France to prosecute suspected terrorists.
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