Final arguments are due at the European Human Rights Court on Thursday, regarding Colombia’s request that ex-IDF officer Lt.-Col. (ret.) Yair Klein be extradited from Russia. Klein fears he will be targeted there for death - and many agree.

The Human Rights Court in France has issued a temporary ruling that Russia may not extradite Klein to Colombia, and it plans to issue a final ruling on the matter within several weeks. Leading figures in both Israel and Europe believe that the ruling is a matter of life and death for the 67-year-old Klein – both because of the broad extent of vilification to which he has been subject in Colombia and because of the inferior level of civil rights in Colombia’s prison system.



Klein was tried in absentia in Colombia on charges of training anti-government guerilla groups involved in terrorist activities in the 1980’s, and was sentenced to more than 10 years in prison. He has been incarcerated in Moscow since August 2007, when he was apprehended following an Interpol international warrant for his arrest. Russia said it would honor Colombia’s extradition request, but Klein has appealed the decision both in Russian courts and the European Court for Human Rights.

He was not successful in Russia’s Supreme Court, but the international court has been more understanding of the dangers that await him if he is extradited to Colombia.

Shachak: Everything Must Be Done to Prevent Extradition

The case has aroused great concern in Israel. Former IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. (ret.) Amnon Lipkin-Shachak, for instance, says he is fearful for Klein’s life if he is extradited. “Everything possible must be done to try to prevent this extradition,” he told IsraelNationalNews. “His incarceration in Colombia is life-threatening."

Lipkin-Shachak said Klein "has many merits in terms of his service in the IDF – he was in the elite Sayeret Haruv unit in the Jordan Valley during the famous period of the ‘chases’ of Palestinian terrorist infiltrators from Jordan in the late 1960’s – but this case goes well beyond this: Any citizen facing the dangers he now faces deserves all the help we can give him.”

One of Klein’s Israeli lawyers, Mordechai Tzivin of Tel Aviv, a specialist in representing Israelis incarcerated abroad and who is representing Klein at no charge, expressed confidence regarding the European Court ruling: “In light of past experience, we are sure that this court, which has always preserved human rights, will follow the same course this time as well, because of the certainty that Klein’s civil rights will be violated in Colombia."

"This case, in particular, is viewed as a political case in Colombia, and because of its special circumstances, it can easily lead to death," Tzivin added. "We are confident that the Court will not force him to go to such danger in Colombia.”

Convicts in Jail Pose Danger

“For Klein to return to Colombia for 10 years in jail,” Tzivin said, “where many convicts are sworn enemies of those he was accused of having helped, means an almost certain death sentence.”

As proof of the hostility Klein would face if forced to return to Colombia, Tzivin quotes Colombia’s Vice President Santos as having said, “Hopefully they’ll hand Klein over to us so he can rot in jail for all the damage he’s caused Colombia.”

The Vice President's hostility towards Klein is apparently a result of his reported kidnapping in 1990 by a gang led by a paramilitary fighter with whom Klein is widely assumed in Colombia to have had ties. Santos' reaction can be interpreted as a quest for personal revenge, however justified - "and does not bode well for how he might behave towards Klein in his official capacity," Tzivin said.

The President and Other Top Officials

Both Santos and President Alvaro Uribe have come out against those who defend terrorists – implying that their sympathy for someone like Klein is non-existent, if at all. In a speech in a terrorism-plagued town some years ago, Uribe said: "My commitment is to you, not to those people who make a living defending [and] enabling the terrorists. Their honeymoon is ending. It doesn't matter what the sponsors of terrorists' defenders say."

Furthermore, IsraelNationalNews has learned that just a week ago, a high-ranking Colombian official - inter alia, a top confidante of the mayor of the city in which Klein is to be incarcerated - visited Israel on an unrelated matter. Asked his opinion of the Klein case, the visitor said unabashedly, “I think he should rot in prison his whole life. I have no moral problem with this.”

Civil Rights in Colombia: Low Level

The level of human rights in Colombia is considered very low, as rights groups have documented.  In its 2005 report on Colombia, Amnesty International reported: “As part of the government's ‘war on terror’, hundreds of civilians, especially peasant farmers, human rights defenders, community leaders and trade unionists, were subjected to mass and often irregular detentions by the security forces. Many of these detentions were carried out solely on the basis of information provided by paid informants. The use of mass detentions was questioned by the Office of the Procurator General, the Human Rights Ombudsman, and the Office in Colombia of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.”



"

Colombia has promised the Russians that Klein will come to no harm," Attorney Tzivin said. "Who could possibly believe that this can be entertained seriously?... I have spoken to many top thinkers in France, including former high-ranking Justice Ministry officials, as well as European Parliament members, who all agreed that the Court must, and will, maintain human rights in this case, and should not order Klein's extradition to Colombia because of the extreme civil rights violations he can expect there, even up to the point of death."