Spain allows US extradition case against alleged Hamas donor to proceed

Spain on Tuesday allowed a US extradition request for alleged Hamas donor James Cox Chambers to proceed to court, despite protests from the government’s left-wing coalition partners who argue the case is politically motivated.

The case is politically sensitive for Spain’s Socialist-led government, whose pro-Palestinian stance has drawn rebuke from the Trump administration and contributed to wider tensions with Washington.

Chambers, 41, an American multimillionaire media heir known as Fergie, was arrested at the request of US authorities on July 10 while on holiday in Ibiza. He is currently in pre-trial detention in Madrid.

A self-described anti-imperialist and communist, Chambers has called in interviews and on social media for the destruction of the United States. He received $250 million after divesting from his family’s media conglomerate, Cox Enterprises, in 2023, his spokesperson said.

The US wants Chambers for, among other charges, allegedly sending $7.5 million from the US to a Tunisian bank account several years ago when he lived in that country, according to the UK’s Guardian newspaper, which cited Chambers’s legal representative. The money was allegedly then used to support Hamas.

The Guardian also noted that a week after the Hamas-led October 7, 2023, invasion of southern Israel that killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians, Chambers posted to X, “No faction of the Palestinian resistance, Hamas or other, has done *anything* wrong.”

Chambers has also donated over $1 million to humanitarian causes in Gaza and paid legal fees for some members of the activist group Palestine Action, according to his legal team.

The group was designated as a terrorist organization by the US and UK for actions that include targeting Israel-linked defense companies. The UK ban came into force on July 5, 2025, shortly after a break-in at the Royal Air Force’s Brize Norton base in June 2025, when activists damaged two military planes. In June, a judge jailed four activists for raiding a site of Israeli defense company Elbit near Bristol, in western England, in 2024 and causing over a million pounds in damage. One of them hit a police officer twice on the back with a sledgehammer, leaving her with a fractured spine.

The United States has not publicly detailed the charges against Chambers. His legal team says they include money laundering and conspiracy to commit disorderly conduct.

The US Department of Justice declined to comment on the charges.

The case has attracted widespread attention from pro-Palestinian figures, with 150 prominent activists and celebrities, including Richard Gere, Greta Thunberg and Fatima Bhutto, signing a letter urging Spain not to move forward with the extradition proceedings.

Both Chambers’s lawyers and Sumar, the Socialists’ junior coalition partner, say that the lack of publicly available evidence suggests he is being targeted for his political views. Under Spanish law, extradition cannot proceed if a request is found to be politically motivated.

“This extradition would set an alarming precedent in Europe if Spain permits the Trump administration to criminalize humanitarian aid vital to the Palestinian people,” said Chambers’s lawyer Baltasar Garzon, who has filed an application for asylum for Chambers in Spain.

Government spokesperson Elma Saiz said the decision to advance the case was “purely procedural,” adding that the cabinet would make the final determination after the court process concludes.

A date for the hearing would be set in the coming weeks, a court spokesperson said.