Defense lawyer Garzón warns of ‘alarming precedent’ if extradition proceeds
Spain’s council of ministers is set to convene on 22 September to decide whether to allow the United States to pursue the extradition of James “Fergie” Chambers, a 41-year-old American and heir to the Cox Communications fortune who has been held in Madrid since his 10 July detention in Ibiza, according to his attorneys. The meeting is the first formal stage at which the Spanish government can deny the U.S. request before any judicial proceedings begin. According to The Guardian, the case marks the first known U.S. effort to extradite a citizen over alleged support for Hamas.
Under Spanish law, the council evaluates the materials supplied by the requesting government — in this case, the Trump administration submitted its supporting materials on 26 August — and can block the extradition at what is known as the “administrative” stage. Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez sits on the council.
The U.S. government’s case centers on $7.5 million that Chambers wired several years ago from a U.S. bank account to Tunisia, where he lived at the time. Prosecutors allege the money was used to support Hamas. The exact details of the indictment remain sealed.
His attorneys, in a brief submitted to the government ahead of the meeting, argue that the U.S. has failed to identify specific acts of violence or damages personally attributable to Chambers and is instead seeking to criminalize acts linked to political protest. They also contend that “conspiracy to commit riot,” one of the figures cited in the request, has no equivalent in Spanish law, which would help render the extradition invalid.
“It would set an alarming precedent in all of Europe if Spain allowed the Trump administration to criminalize offering vital humanitarian aid to the Palestinian people and defending their rights,” said Baltasar Garzón, the human rights lawyer and a member of Chambers’ legal team. “That’s what Fergie has financed: humanitarian aid and support for people in a situation of great need,” Garzón said. “That’s not terrorism, according to Spanish and European legal standards.”
The defense has also pushed back on additional charges of “international money laundering,” arguing that Chambers obtained his personal wealth through legal means. His money came from a mid-2023 settlement with his family, owners of Atlanta-based Cox Communications, in which he sold stock back to his family worth about $250 million. Members of his family severed contact with him at the time.
Chambers’ donations have gone to about 100 projects in 20 countries, his defense says, including the Sameer Project in Gaza. His partner, actor and activist Stella Schnabel, told The Guardian last month that the $7.5 million went to support Club Africain, a Tunisian football club. Hamed Mbarek, one of the club’s supporters and an organizer of fans at a recent match, said Club Africain was “pro-Palestine” and that Chambers and the club had “synchronicity.”
In the lead-up to the 22 September meeting, Schnabel has met with members of Sumar and Podemos, the progressive movements that govern jointly with Sánchez’s Socialist party, and has written a one-page letter to Sánchez asking him to make “the only morally acceptable decision,” that of denying extradition. Sánchez forms part of the council of ministers.
Schnabel has drawn attention of her own since her partner’s detention. On a recent trip to New York, she said, FBI agents pulled her aside at JFK airport and confiscated her phone.
Podemos leader Ione Bellara opened the party’s quarterly meeting last Saturday with a statement opposing the extradition, saying Chambers was “on the right side of history” with his financial support of Palestinians in Gaza. Sumar filed a statement in Spain’s congress earlier this week urging the government to deny the petition, “given that the goal of the extradition request … is to criminalize, persecute or punish [Chambers] due to his political opinions, his public activity or his participation in political movements – in this case, in support of the Palestinian people.”
Irene Montero, a Podemos member of the European Parliament, told The Guardian: “Our laws don’t contemplate the actions he is accused of … [and] we can’t become a subject of the United States.”
Activists have staged rallies in recent days in at least six Spanish cities in support of Chambers, with more planned. A petition delivered to the Spanish government was signed by actors, academics, activists and others, including Richard Gere, Greta Thunberg and Angela Davis. In Tunisia, supporters of Club Africain displayed banners and T-shirts at a recent match that read “Free Fergie.” At Festa do Avante in Portugal, fans held up a banner saying: “Free Fergie – supporting Palestine isn’t a crime.”
Chambers’ views and donations have been extensively profiled in U.S. media. He was interviewed on a New Hampshire television station 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.” A week after the 7 October 2023 Hamas attacks on Israel, he posted on X: “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.” In 2024, he told a reporter: “I think the most important thing for the prosperity of humanity is the destruction of the US.”
Irene Zugasti, who helped organize rallies earlier this week and last weekend in Madrid, Barcelona and several other Spanish cities, said she saw the case as larger than Chambers personally. “If they go after Fergie, they’ll go after anyone,” Zugasti said. “It’s a test – to see until what point European governments feel pressure from the United States.”