Case marks first known US extradition effort over alleged Hamas support
Spain’s 22-member council of ministers on Tuesday declined to block a US extradition request against James “Fergie” Chambers, remanding the case to the country’s courts for a legal process that could take months. Elma Saiz, Spain’s minister of inclusion, social security and migration, devoted less than a minute to announcing the decision to the Spanish press, calling it “purely procedural.” The 22-member council could have rejected the US petition outright but instead opted to remand the request to the Spanish justice system.
The decision marks the first known instance of the United States seeking to extradite one of its citizens over alleged support for Hamas. Chambers, a US citizen and wealthy donor to humanitarian and leftwing projects, has been imprisoned in Madrid since Spanish police detained him in Ibiza on 10 July. The US accusation is tied to money Chambers has donated to support Palestinians, including the Sameer Project, in Gaza.
The case has exposed divisions within Spain’s governing coalition over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s government has repeatedly expressed support for the Palestinian people, putting it at odds with the Trump administration. Sources close to the council told the Guardian that five Sumar ministers – including the vice-president – pushed back in the meeting. Sumar, a leftwing coalition, governs jointly with Sánchez’s Socialist party.
Chambers’ 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.
Baltasar Garzón, the international human rights lawyer leading Chambers’ legal team, said 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,” Garzón said.
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 read “Free Fergie.”
Belarra 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.
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 concludes, according to attorney Aitor Martínez, part of Chambers’ legal team. Martínez 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 his detention.
The US government’s case centers on an alleged $7.5 million that Chambers wired several years ago from a US bank account to Tunisia, where he lived at the time, and his alleged use of the money to support Hamas. His partner, activist and actor Stella Schnabel, told the Guardian last month that the $7.5 million went to support Club Africain, a Tunisian football club – paying off debt and past-due salaries, 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 United States, he 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 them stock worth about $250 million. Members of his family severed contact with him at the time, and his donations have gone to about 100 projects in 20 countries.
Sealed charges against Chambers were originally filed in New Hampshire.
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”.
A week after the 7 October 2023 Hamas attacks on Israel, Chambers 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.