EXTRADITIONConspiracy to murder in the United States - US government seeking extradition of person who had never been to the US - territoriality rule applyingR v Governor of Brixton Prison and another, Ex parte Al-Fawwaz: QBD (Buxton LJ and Elias J): 30 November 2000The applicant was alleged to have conspired to murder US citizens, officials, diplomats, and others to whom the Internationally Protected Persons Act 1978 applied, in the US and elsewhere.He had never been to the United States and it was disputed whether any acts in pursuit of the conspiracy had occurred there.Extradition to the US was governed by section1(3) of and schedule 1 to the Extradition Act 1989 and the United States of America (Extradition) Order 1976.Following the applicant's committal to prison by the stipendiary magistrate to await the decision of the Secretary of State as to whether to order his extradition to the US regarding the offence of conspiracy to murder, the applicant applied for habeas corpus.Edward Fitzgerald QC and Keir Starmer (instructed by Raja & Partners) for the applicant.

James Lewis and Saba Naqshbandi (instructed by Treasury Solicitor) for the governor of Brixton prison and the government of the United States of America.Held, refusing the application, that extradition could be granted under schedule 1 to the 1989 Act only where crime in respect of which it was sought had been committed within the territory of the requesting state, and, as transposed, within the territory of England and Wales; that it was not sufficient that the conduct alleged was indictable under the extra-territorial jurisdiction of the United Kingdom; that para15 of schedule 1, which provided that if certain offences of an international character were also against the law of a schedule 1 state they were deemed to be offences committed within the jurisdiction of that state, did not mean that conduct constituting the offences had actually taken place within the US, and could not circumvent the territoriality rule; but that a prima facie case of conspiracy had been properly established since the applicant's acts relied on by the US government as establishing a conspiracy (setting up a secure telephone line and purchasing a satellite phone system in the US and concurrence in the issuing of fatwahs and jihads in countries including the US) sufficed to establish the required territorial jurisdiction.