Spanish court turned over activist Chambers’s cellphone to the FBI, lawyer says

Asylum application bars extradition as defense seeks phone’s return

U.S. authorities seized James “Fergie” Chambers’s cellphone at some point after Spanish police arrested him in July, without notifying him or his attorneys, The Guardian has learned. Chambers’s legal team learned on Tuesday, when it inquired about the device, that it was no longer in the custody of the national court in Madrid and had been turned over to the FBI, according to attorney Aitor Martínez.

The defense has asked an appeals court for the phone’s immediate return. Its petition also seeks a detailed account of the chain of custody: who authorized the transfer, when it occurred and whether U.S. officials accessed the phone’s contents. Martínez said it was assumed that the office of Félix Bolaños, Spain’s minister of justice, would have to get involved in bringing the phone back.

Martínez said the defense had written guarantees from the court that the phone “would remain under the court’s custody while the extradition request was resolved.” He said Spanish law and the extradition treaty required the same result. The 1970 treaty between the two countries says possessions belonging to a person sought in extradition may be released to the requesting country only if and when extradition has been granted.

Martínez said, “I’ve never seen anything like this in an extradition case.” He added, “Spanish judicial authorities can’t surrender control over the personal effects of a person sought in extradition just because a foreign government has asked for them … and now a judge has secretly turned over Fergie’s phone to the US.”

Chambers has applied for political asylum from prison. Under Spanish law, an asylum applicant cannot be extradited until the asylum process is completed, and Spanish courts could take months to decide whether to surrender him to the United States. His legal team is also asserting that U.S. authorities’ seizure violated various Spanish and international laws governing extradition and political asylum because it occurred without legal due process. “Chambers’s status as an asylum applicant means the court can’t ignore its obligations to protect him, or give information about him to the country alleged to be persecuting him,” Martínez said.

The U.S. extradition request alleges support for Hamas, an accusation tied to money Chambers donated to support Palestinians, including the Sameer Project in Gaza. The request also includes charges associated with a protest against Elbit Systems, an Israeli weapons manufacturer. The Guardian described the case as the first known instance of the United States seeking to extradite a citizen over alleged Hamas support. Through his attorneys and his partner, actor and activist Stella Schnabel, Chambers has asserted that the extradition request is politically motivated.

Chambers, a U.S. citizen and wealthy donor to leftwing and humanitarian projects, remains imprisoned in Madrid. A judge denied his petition for provisional release earlier this month, asserting in part that his wealth made him a flight risk.

Chambers describes himself as a communist and anti-imperialist and is an heir of the Cox family, owners of Atlanta-based Cox Communications. As part of a settlement that severed ties between his family and him, he sold stock back to his family worth about $250m in mid-2023. Since then, he has funded an estimated 100 projects in 20 countries, according to Schnabel.

The Guardian published a photograph of Chambers at home in Tunis, Tunisia, on 8 February 2024, credited to Chedly Ben Ibrahim/NurPhoto via Getty Images.

The Guardian reported that Chambers’s views and donations have been extensively profiled in U.S. media and that his public comments on Israel and Gaza have brought controversy. 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.”

Schnabel told The Guardian that she retrieved Chambers’s personal effects last month at the prison, including keys and identification. It was unclear whether Spain had already surrendered the phone to the United States by then; Martínez said a judge had assured him on 20 July that the phone was in the court’s custody. Referring to the apparent suspension of due process driven by the FBI’s request, Schnabel said, “I’m not surprised,” and added, “It’s exactly in line with this administration not following the rules of the legal system.”