Norwegian court rejects US request to extradite JCC hoax bomber due to mental state

14 November 2025, 5:43 pm

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Michael Kadar at his sentencing hearing at the Tel Aviv District Court on November 22, 2018. (Screen capture/X)

A Norwegian district court has rejected a US request to extradite Michael Kadar, who served seven years in Israeli prison for targeting Jewish community centers and institutions in multiple countries with a wave of bomb threats in 2016 and 2017 when he was a teenager.

The court accepted the defense’s argument that Kadar has autism and has suffered severe mental distress due to his continued imprisonment and that extraditing him to the US would risk a violation of his human rights.

The court also accepted the defense argument that Kadar was already sentenced for his crimes in Israel and that double jeopardy prevents him from being extradited to the US to stand trial for those same crimes.

The court ruling notes the lack of a clear promise by US authorities that they will provide Kadar with adequate mental health treatment.

While Kadar will not be extradited, Norwegian authorities will continue holding him in a state treatment facility while Oslo awaits a US decision on whether to file an appeal. If it does not do so, Kadar will be released.

Responding to the ruling, Kadar’s attorney Nir Yaslovitzh said in a statement that the court ruled “unequivocally” that his client suffers from paranoid schizophrenia and that his mental state does not allow him to stand trial, not today and not seven years ago when he was convicted in Israel.

“This is a professional finding based on testimony from two senior experts in forensic psychiatry, who determined that my client was and remains a sick person in need of treatment, not criminal proceedings. Unfortunately, the procedure conducted in Israel in the past did not give sufficient weight to his medical condition, thus causing my client a severe injustice that led to an unprecedented sentence,” Yaslovitzh says.

In light of the Norwegian ruling, a request for a retrial will be submitted in Israel, Yaslovitzh says.

Kadar was released from Israeli prison last year and left the country. While traveling in Norway, he requested asylum, triggering an existing US extradition request for him.