Fergie Chambers at home in Tunis, Tunisia, on 8 February 2024. Photograph: Chedly Ben Ibrahim/NurPhoto via Getty Images View image in fullscreen Fergie Chambers at home in Tunis, Tunisia, on 8 February 2024. Photograph: Chedly Ben Ibrahim/NurPhoto via Getty Images US news Wife of US heir and activist donor on fighting his extradition to US: ‘It’s incredible that this can happen’ Stella Schnabel says Trump administration is falsely accusing James ‘Fergie’ Chambers of contributing to Hamas
Prefer the Guardian on Google A lthough her husband, James “Fergie” Chambers, had been locked up in Spain for nearly a week, Stella Schnabel didn’t break down and cry until Thursday, when she finally got to speak to him for several minutes – enough time, she said, “for us to say we love each other and for him to say: ‘Tell the kids I love them.’”
Spanish authorities, operating on a US extradition request, arrested the 41-year-old Chambers, a US citizen and wealthy donor to leftwing and humanitarian projects worldwide, last Friday in Ibiza. He has been transferred to a prison in Madrid. The Trump administration’s Department of Justice is seeking his extradition for alleged financial support of Hamas, according to a spokesperson for the Spanish high court.
The court has two weeks to decide on Chambers’s appeal seeking bail, and 40 days to decide on the US extradition request. If the court denies the extradition, the case closes. If it grants the extradition, the council of ministers has the final decision, according to the spokesperson. The indictment against Chambers is sealed.
This is the first known case of the US seeking extradition of a citizen over alleged support for Hamas, veteran attorney Stanley Cohen told the Guardian earlier this week.
It is unfolding as Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state, convened 66 countries this week – including Spain – as part of a broader effort to discredit leftwing activity as terrorism. One of Chambers’s attorneys, Josep Riba, said in a statement that Spain’s participation in the conference “has raised his family’s concern that Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez – otherwise renowned for standing up to President Donald Trump and voicing his solidarity with Palestinians – may comply with the US’s politically motivated attack”.
Schnabel, an actor and daughter of painter and filmmaker Julian Schnabel , said she had been in shock and hardly slept until she heard Chambers’s voice Thursday. She still hadn’t seen him. “It’s been very stressful,” she said.
She described how the two had been on family vacation last week, accompanied by their five-year-old son and other family members. Chambers also has three teenaged children from a previous relationship.
Read more The couple had been considering a move to Ibiza, and were driving along a dirt road on the Spanish island on their way to visit a potential school for their son last Friday. Suddenly, seven police officers in several cars cut them off, she said. “I said to Fergie: ‘You know what’s happening, right?’” she said. The officers told her she couldn’t film them with her phone and handcuffed Chambers. The arrest took less than five minutes, she said.
Chambers has said that he has known since 2015 that he was on the US federal government’s radar, due to activism against police in Atlanta. A self-described communist and anti-imperialist, he is heir to one of the richest families in the US, the owners of Atlanta-based Cox Communications. He sold stock back to his family…