🇺🇸 United States →

A naturalized U.S. citizen challenged the certification of his extradition to Iraq to stand trial for the 2006 murders of two Iraqi police officers, allegedly committed while he was a local leader of Al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI). The Ninth Circuit affirmed the denial of habeas relief, holding that competent evidence supported probable cause and reiterating that habeas review of an extradition certification is severely limited and does not permit courts to weigh conflicting evidence or consider evidence that merely contradicts, rather than explains away or completely obliterates, probable cause. The Court also rejected the political offense exception under Article III of the U.S.–Iraq Extradition Treaty: although a violent Sunni insurgency existed in Iraq in 2006, the requested person failed to establish the required nexus between the murders and that domestic uprising, as the offenses were attributed to AQI, which the Court regarded as a transnational terrorist organization pursuing objectives beyond the indigenous insurgency. The Court further held that concerns regarding the Iraqi judicial system and humanitarian conditions were barred by the rule of non-inquiry and were for the Secretary of State to assess, while any future violation of the rule of specialty was speculative and likewise more appropriately addressed to the State Department.

Following certification of the requested person’s extradition from the United States to Türkiye, the requested person renewed her application for release, relying on the existence of special circumstances and the court’s general authority to consider bail before and after certification. The District Court held that an extradition court has no discretion to grant bail where the governing treaty expressly requires the requested person to remain detained until the extradition request is determined and, if granted, until surrender. It found that Article 9 of the United States–Türkiye Extradition Treaty was a self-executing provision binding on the court as the supreme law of the land under the Supremacy Clause. The court rejected the special-circumstances argument and distinguished earlier authority granting bail because that authority had not considered the treaty’s mandatory-detention clause.

The petitioner challenged the certification of his extraditability to Israel, where he was sought for prosecution for attempted murder and related offences arising from an alleged organized-crime plot. He argued that the extradition court lacked jurisdiction because United States authorities had secured his transfer from Malaysia through deception and unlawful conduct, and further claimed that the evidence submitted by Israel did not establish probable cause. The District Court held that, under the Ker–Frisbie doctrine, even an irregular or unlawful rendition does not ordinarily deprive a court of jurisdiction, absent conduct comparable to the extreme torture or brutality contemplated by the narrow Toscanino exception. It also found that the United States–Malaysia extradition treaty did not apply because the petitioner had not been transferred pursuant to that treaty and concluded that the evidentiary record was sufficient to support probable cause. The habeas petition and the request for a stay pending appeal were therefore denied, subject to a one-week administrative stay allowing an application to the Court of Appeals.

The court certified extradition to Peru, emphasizing the limited role of the extradition court under 18 U.S.C. § 3184. The court held that a foreign conviction—particularly one obtained after the defendant participated in trial proceedings—is ordinarily sufficient to establish probable cause. Even assuming the conviction was treated like an in absentia conviction, the detailed findings of the Peruvian courts independently established probable cause. The decision also reaffirmed that U.S. courts do not second-guess foreign criminal proceedings or procedural rulings so long as treaty requirements are satisfied.

The court certified extradition to Thailand after finding that a detailed affidavit from a Thai prosecutor, supported by hearsay summaries of witness statements and financial evidence, was sufficient to establish probable cause. The court emphasized that extradition proceedings are not trials, that hearsay is admissible, and that probable cause may rest on authenticated foreign investigative materials. The opinion also held that, once a court certifies extraditability, 18 U.S.C. § 3184 requires detention pending surrender, rejecting the view that courts retain discretion to continue bail after certification

The case concerned extradition proceedings under the U.S.–Germany extradition treaty, in which the defendant sought revocation of a detention order entered pending extradition. He argued that special circumstances justified release, relying on his medical condition, alleged delays in the extradition proceedings, and family responsibilities, and further maintained that he was not a flight risk. On de novo review, the District Court held that none of those factors amounted to special circumstances capable of overcoming the presumption against bail in extradition cases. Because no special circumstances were established, the Court denied the motion to revoke the detention order without reaching a final determination on flight risk or danger to the community.

The case concerned Ghana’s request for the extradition of a former Chief Executive Officer of the Microfinance and Small Loans Centre, who had been convicted in Ghana and sentenced to ten years’ imprisonment for multiple offences involving stealing, conspiracy, willfully causing financial loss to the State, causing loss to public property and money laundering. The United States District Court for the District of Nevada certified extradition, holding that the extradition treaty between the United States and Ghana, together with the United Nations Convention against Corruption, was valid and in force and covered the relevant offences. The Court rejected the argument that dual criminality was lacking because the Ghanaian offences had a lower mens rea threshold than their United States analogues, emphasizing that dual criminality does not require identity of statutory elements, but only that the underlying conduct be criminal in both countries. On the facts alleged, the conduct would be prosecutable in the United States as theft or receipt of stolen government property and money laundering. The Court also held that Ghana’s judgment of conviction, together with the authenticated affidavits, was sufficient to establish probable cause, even though the conviction had been entered after the requested person failed to return to Ghana during trial. The Court therefore certified extradition and committed the requested person to the custody of the United States Marshal pending the Secretary of State’s final surrender decision. According to the subsequent Department of Justice press release, the Secretary of State authorized surrender and the requested person was extradited to Ghana on 8 June 2026.

The United States, acting on behalf of the Republic of Türkiye, sought the extradition of Eylem Tok, a Turkish national, on charges of destroying, concealing or altering evidence under Article 281 of the Turkish Criminal Code and protecting an offender under Article 283 of the same code. The charges arose not from the underlying fatal traffic accident — which the record attributes entirely to her minor son, T.C. — but from her conduct in the hours immediately following it: taking a victim’s cell phone from security officers under a false pretext and concealing it, removing her son and two other minors from the accident scene before police could observe or question them, and flying with her son out of Türkiye on one-way tickets within three hours of the collision.Following an extradition hearing under 18 U.S.C. § 3184, Chief Magistrate Judge Cabell denied the relator’s motion to dismiss, denied her motion for release from custody, and certified her extraditability to the Secretary of State on both offences. The decision is a companion to In re Extradition of T.C., 740 F. Supp. 3d 10 (D. Mass. 2024), concerning the relator’s son, and it addresses in detail several recurring questions of U.S. extradition law: the minimum-gravity (one-year punishability) requirement and its interaction with treaty accessory clauses, the treatment of foreign-law expert evidence that contradicts the requesting State’s position, the dual criminality doctrine, the meaning of “charged with an offense” in a treaty that does not require a charging document, the probable cause standard, and the “special circumstances” test for bail pending extradition.

The Chilean Supreme Court authorised the submission of an active extradition request to the United States in respect of three persons prosecuted in Chile for the aggravated murder of a United Nations official and for participation in an unlawful association. The Court held that the treaty requirement that the requested persons be “accused” was satisfied by a final domestic order placing them under formal investigation, since that order was based on evidence sufficient to justify their arrest and prosecution. The extradition request was authorised for aggravated murder, an offence expressly included in the exhaustive list contained in the 1900 Chile–United States Extradition Treaty. It was refused for unlawful association because that offence was not covered by the treaty and the list could not be expanded through reciprocity or general principles of international law.