Spain allows US extradition request for activist James Chambers to proceed in courts

The Spanish government has decided to allow the Trump administration’s controversial extradition request to extradite wealthy activist James “Fergie” Chambers to continue in the country’s courts.

Chambers, a US citizen and wealthy donor to leftwing and humanitarian projects, is currently imprisoned in Madrid. It is the first known case of the US seeking to extradite a citizen over alleged support for Hamas, an accusation tied to money Chambers has donated to support Palestinians, including the Sameer Project, in Gaza.

His legal defense team, an array of Spanish parliamentarians, and some celebrity supporters have publicly opposed the request, calling it political persecution, which would render it illegitimate under Spanish law.

The 22-member council of ministers could have rejected the US petition outright on Tuesday but instead opted to remand the request to the Spanish justice system, beginning a legal process which could now take months.

Meanwhile, Chambers has begun the process from prison of applying for asylum in Spain – which by law makes it impossible for the country to extradite him until the process is concluded, according to attorney Aitor Martínez, part of Chambers’ legal team.

The attorney also told the Guardian that a third request to allow his client to be released on bond while his situation is resolved awaits a judge’s decision, after previous requests have been denied since Spanish police detained him in Ibiza on 10 July.

Elma Saiz, minister of inclusion, social security and migration, devoted less than a minute to announcing Tuesday’s council decision to the Spanish press, calling it “purely procedural”.

Details from the weekly meetings are not public, but sources close to the council told the Guardian: “There was debate, and five ministers from Sumar – including the vice-president – pushed back in the meeting.” Sumar, a leftwing coalition, governs jointly with Spanish prime minister Pedro Sánchez’s Socialist party.

Sánchez’s government has repeatedly expressed support for the Palestinian people, putting him at odds with the Trump administration.

Baltasar Garzón, the international human rights lawyer leading Chambers’ legal team, said that Tuesday’s decision “sets a dangerous precedent regarding the defense of the Palestinian cause”.

“Spain cannot defend international law, the rights of the Palestinian people and the protection of those who provide humanitarian aid while at the same time allowing a request to proceed with an extradition that shows clear signs of political persecution by the US government, as it is directed against an individual because of his political activity and solidarity with Palestine.”

Ione Belarra, secretary-general of Podemos – a progressive party also vital to Sánchez’s interests – said the government “has chosen to keep [Chambers] imprisoned by giving the green light for Trump’s political persecution to proceed to the courts”. Belarra appeared in Parliament on Tuesday afternoon wearing a T-shirt that said “Free Fergie”.

She also noted that Spain must hold a general election by August, and said many of her colleagues in Spain’s Congress “are deeply concerned that by the time Fergie Chambers’ case has gone through the judicial process … Spain could have a more conservative, pro-Israel government”

The possibility of Chambers being extradited “risks opening the floodgates to Trump’s repression reaching into Spain and the rest of Europe and targeting other progressives”, Belarra said.

The US government’s case centers on Chambers allegedly laundering $7.5m he wired several years ago from a US bank account to Tunisia, where he lived at the time, and allegedly using the money to support Hamas.

His partner, activist and actor Stella Schnabel, told the Guardian last month that the $7.5m went to support Club Africain, a Tunisian football club, paying off debt and past-due salaries as well as rebuilding a training center and building youth football fields.

The self-described anti–imperialist’s defense is also asserting that the Trump administration’s charges of “international money laundering” do not hold up because, as heir to one of the richest families in the US, he obtained his personal wealth through legal means.

His money comes from a mid-2023 settlement with his family, owners of Atlanta-based Cox Communications, in which he sold them stock worth about $250m. Members of his family severed contact with him at the time and his donations have gone to about 100 projects in 20 countries.

Chambers’ views and donations have been extensively profiled in US media. He was interviewed on a TV news station in New Hampshire in late 2023 about a direct action against Elbit Systems, an Israeli defense contractor, staged by a group whose legal fees he paid, then called Palestine Action – a group now proscribed in the UK as a “terrorist organization”.

Sealed charges against Chambers were originally filed in New Hampshire.

Chambers’ public comments on Israel and Gaza have previously brought controversy. A week after the 7 October 2023 Hamas attacks on Israel, he posted on X about Israel’s response: “Stop calling it ‘collective punishment’/ There’s nothing to be ‘punished’ for/ No faction of the Palestinian resistance, Hamas or other, has done *anything* wrong/ It’s simply genocide/ Like it has been.”

He has also been a staunch critic of the US, telling a reporter in 2024: “I think the most important thing for the prosperity of humanity is the destruction of the US.”

“I am heartbroken,” Schnabel told the Guardian. The two have a young son and Schnabel is just over three months pregnant. “Fergie could spend the first year of our baby’s life unable to hold them, seeing them only through a pane of glass – even though he has not been convicted of any crime,” she said.