Rights court halts mercenary's extradition

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Guardian

Rights court halts mercenary's extradition
David Pallister The Guardian,
Tuesday June 3 2008

A notorious Israeli mercenary has successfully appealed to the European court of human rights to postpone his extradition from Russia to Colombia, where he faces an 11-year jail sentence for training rightwing paramilitaries and a private army for the drug barons of the Medellín cartel.

Yair Klein, 64, a reserve lieutenant colonel in the Israel defence forces (IDF)and a veteran of the six-day and Yom Kippur wars, has done business with armed groups in Latin America and Africa for 25 years. He has spent nine months in a Moscow prison but last week the Russian supreme court ordered that the extradition go ahead. Klein's Russian lawyer turned to the human rights court for a temporary stay on the grounds that he could suffer ill-treatment if sent to Bogotá. There were also concerns about the fairness of the 2001 trial, which sentenced him in absentia. During the hearing he said: "Extradition to Colombia would mean a death sentence."

~snip~
In the 1990s Klein was reported to be training President Charles Taylor's "anti-terrorist unit" in Liberia. In January 1999 he was arrested in neighbouring Sierra Leone, and accused of trading diamonds for the supply of arms to the rebel Revolutionary United Front, notorious for chopping off children's limbs. After 16 months in prison he was released without trial in circumstances that remain unclear.

Last year an Interpol warrant was issued for Klein's arrest and in August he was detained in Moscow as he was about to board a flight for Tel Aviv. This time Israel, now Colombia's top arms supplier in its fight against leftwing guerrillas and drug barons, seems to have abandoned him.





Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/jun/03/israelandthepalestinians.russia

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[thunder rising]

1. He sure gets arrested a lot for a "super secret intelligent" agent of war.

[Purveyor]

2. Klein's supporters in Israel, who consider him a war hero...

-clip from article-

While the court deliberates - which could take months - Klein's supporters in Israel, who consider him a war hero, will continue to campaign for his return. His Israeli lawyer, Mordechai Tsivin, said: "In Israel his arrival would be great joy."