Extradition of terror suspects ruled out

EU will not expose prisoners to US death penalty.

European Union countries will without exception refuse to extradite terrorist suspects to the US if they are liable to face capital punishment, Washington was told yesterday.

The threat was made as EU interior and justice ministers meeting in Copenhagen, Denmark, prepared for talks today with the US attorney general, John Ashcroft.

"The European human rights convention is not negotiable," the Danish justice minister, Lene Espersen, declared.

"That means that no EU country will extradite suspects to the United States [if the death penalty might apply]."

US officials have said that Washington could tackle this issue with the EU on a case-by-case basis, as it has done with individual member states.

"The EU side needs to get some form of binding assurance that the death penalty would not be imposed," one Brussels diplomat said last night.

"The US government can make clear that it would not seek the death penalty but it cannot bind judges. Everyone has to feel confident with the mechanism."

Today's unprecedented meeting marks intensifying EU-US cooperation since the terrorist attacks of September 11 last year, though there are significant differences on legal and human rights issues and anxiety on the part of European civil liberties activists.

"I am concerned that the pendulum may have swung too far to the detriment of our fundamental freedoms and rights," said Graham Watson, leader of the Liberal Democrats in the European parliament.

The European independent civil liberties watchdog Statewatch has warned that the EU is failing to respect fundamental rights, but Denmark says that such are unfounded.

Nevertheless, MEPs are concerned that the parliament is not being consulted, as it would have to be on internal EU anti-terrorism measures.

Concern focuses on Washington's demand for information exchanges which could infringe EU privacy laws, its wishes on money laundering, border controls and security cooperation.

But it is the death penalty that provokes the sharpest disagreement, some EU members refusing to release information about suspects in cases that could involve capital punishment.

Germany, already angering the US by its strong opposition to a war on Iraq, refused to provide information last month on the so-called 20th hijacker, Zacarias Moussaoui, without a guarantee that it would not be used to secure a death sentence.

Both sides will use today's meeting to establish political guidelines for their negotiators seeking an agreement on transatlantic mutual legal assistance and extradition.