No legal basis for France's extradition bid for Palestinian ex-general, says lawyer

The lawyer representing retired Palestinian brigadier general Mahmoud Khadr Al-Adra, known as Hisham Harb, says the Palestinian Authority cannot legally extradite him to France, despite growing French pressure following the announcement of his arrest.

A Ramallah court on Wednesday held a session regarding an Interpol request to surrender Al-Adra, 70, to France over his alleged involvement in a 1982 attack on the Jo Goldberg restaurant in Paris. The hearing was postponed until 25 November.

The 1982 attack, which killed six people and wounded at least 20, was the deadliest attack in France since World War II at the time.

Lawyer Mohammed Al-Harini told The New Arab's Arabic language edition that "handing over my client is legally impossible", stressing that political considerations would "have no place in the Palestinian judiciary".

Earlier this week, France publicly welcomed news of the arrest and linked it directly to President Emmanuel Macron's decision to recognise a Palestinian state.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said the arrest was "possible thanks to President Macron's decision to recognise an independent Palestinian state next Monday, which allowed us to request his extradition".

Macron also said France and the Palestinian Authority were "working together for a swift extradition process".

Al-Adra has been held by Palestinian police since 19 September, days before France formally recognised the State of Palestine at the UN General Assembly.

His family says he suffers from serious medical conditions, including bladder cancer and heart problems, and requires treatment that cannot be provided inside the Ramallah police detention centre.

No legal basis for any extradition

Al-Harini said that Palestinian law had prohibited extraditing a Palestinian national, adding that his client does not hold French citizenship, and that no bilateral agreement exists between Paris and the Palestinian Authority on extradition.

He added that the only text being invoked is the 1927 British Mandate extradition law, which he said contradicts the Palestinian Basic Law and was no longer valid.

Al-Adra, he noted, was being detained under this Mandate-era statute even though "it does not apply to the Palestinian legal system", particularly as Palestinian law forbids the surrender of citizens to foreign states.

Al-Harini also stressed that the incident France attributes to his client occurred 43 years ago.

"The alleged act is subject to statutory limitation. No legal system prosecutes a person four decades after the event," he said.

He argued that Interpol's request should not have been entertained in the first place, given the absence of any extradition treaty and Harb's lack of foreign nationality.

"There is no legal foundation that could allow the Palestinian judiciary to extradite Mahmoud Khadr Al-Adra to the French authorities," he said.

Concerns over political pressure

President Mahmoud Abbas told Le Figaro this week that extradition procedures were in their "final stages", and that France's recognition of Palestine had "created an appropriate framework" for it.

French media reported that Interpol had notified the National Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor's Office of Al-Adra's arrest and that French judges had already ordered the trial of six individuals, including Harb, in a special terrorism court.

Asked whether political leadership in Ramallah might intervene to enable the extradition, Al-Harini insisted he trusts the courts.

"Politics will have no place in Palestinian judicial proceedings. Doing otherwise would be a dangerous precedent that violates constitutional rights to a fair trial," he told Al-Araby Al-Jadeed.

He said it would be inconceivable for the PA "to prosecute the Palestinian revolution through Interpol files issued by foreign states outside the framework of binding agreements", warning this would expose Palestinian political struggle to international criminalisation.