Bomb suspect to fight extradition
2005-07-30 22:02
Rome - The London bombing suspect in custody in Rome is to fight extradition to Britain, his lawyer indicated on Saturday after a preliminary extradition hearing at the Italian capital's Regina Coeli prison.
"I don't think there has been a consent to extradition on my client's part," Antonietta Sonnessa, lawyer for Osman Hussain - also known as Isaac Hamdi - told reporters outside the prison, where the 27-year-old suspect has been held since his arrest on Friday.
"We are in a very delicate phase," Sonnessa said. "We are really at the beginning, so no requests have been formulated yet, even on the defence's part."
Italian justice ministry sources said supporting documentation required in the case of suspects held under the new European arrest warrant is expected from British police on Monday.
Could be handed over within days
The new arrest warrant, ratified by the Italian parliament in April, has streamlined extradition procedures between European Union states and could mean the alleged fourth bomber in the failed July 21 attacks could be handed over within days.
The suspect was arrested on Friday at his brother's flat in Rome after fleeing London aboard a Eurostar train to Paris last Tuesday, five days after the attack on the capital's transport system.
"It has been possible to document in real time the stages of Osman Hussain's escape from England, from July 26 when he left London via Waterloo Station," Interior Minister Giuseppe Pisanu said on Saturday, giving the first details of his arrest to parliament.
Pisanu said the Ethiopian-born naturalised Briton was co-operating with police and that police were searching "at least 15" addresses in various provinces in Italy in connection with the investigation.
"We are evaluating the statements given by the man and at least 15 searches are underway," Pisanu said as police targeted a "dense network" of contacts in the Ethiopian and Eritrean community in northern Italy which he used to try to cover his tracks.
"Osman had contact with natives from the Horn of Africa living in the provinces of Milan and Brescia, where the Ethiopian father of Hussain's girlfriend lives."
Pisanu was speaking to a special session of parliament to debate new anti-terrorism measures which he said was "at this moment the absolute priority for the country".
'We have a serious threat'
"Before us, we have a serious threat which must be confronted with all the means of prevention and combat which we have acquired through these measures."
The emergency measures, adopted by the senate on Friday, were expected to be passed by the lower house of parliament late on Saturday as the government bids to rush through the package before the summer recess.
They include the forced taking of hair and saliva samples from suspects for DNA evidence, doubling the time terrorism suspects can be held without charge to 24 hours and allowing interrogations without defence lawyers.
The legislation also makes it easier to expel foreigners deemed a risk to national security or found supporting or helping terrorist groups.
Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi was upbeat in the wake of Friday's arrest, saying in a newspaper interview on Saturday that Italians were obviously in "good hands" and had "nothing to be afraid of".
"It was a brilliant operation. It seems that this individual was only passing through Italy," on his way to Ethiopia and not planning an attack, Berlusconi told the right-wing daily Libero.
Newspaper reports on Saturday said police had located Hussain in Paris on Wednesday July 27 by monitoring his cellphone, before picking up his trail again on Thursday in Milan and Bologna before he arrived by train in Rome.