U.S. 'supermax' prison: 'Alcatraz of the Rockies' is seen as 'inhuman and degrading' [View all]

[n2doc]

U.S. prosecutors want Ali Charaf Damache in the worst way.

An Irish resident originally from Algiers, Damache, 50, is accused of using online chat rooms to recruit American women into a would-be terrorist cell operating in this country and Europe.

One man and two women, including Damache's wife, have already been convicted in U.S. courts of providing material support to terrorists. And Damache was captured by Irish authorities in 2010 in Dublin on a separate charge of making a telephone death threat and held without bail.

But despite requests from U.S. prosecutors to have him extradited to this country for trial in Philadelphia, the High Court of Ireland has refused.

It's not because they want to prosecute him themselves or believe he is innocent. Rather, the Irish court ruled that Damache, if sent to the United States, would probably be locked up in the federal "supermax" prison. And to the court, that amounted to "cruel and unusual" punishment.

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http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-extradite-supermax-20150809-story.html#page=1