1 of 2FILE – This undated booking photo, provided by the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office, shows Ali Yousif Ahmed Al-Nouri, arrested in Arizona in January 2020 on an extradition request from the Iraqi government and participating in the murders of two police officers almost 15 years in Iraq. Prosecutors on Friday, April 16, 2021 asked a judge to approve the Iraqi government’s extradition request for Ahmed, an Iraqi who came to the United States as a refugee in 2009 and became a US citizen in 2015. (Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office via AP, File) 1 of 2FILE – This undated booking photo, provided by the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office, shows Ali Yousif Ahmed Al-Nouri, arrested in Arizona in January 2020 as part of an extradition request by the the Iraqi government and is accused of participating in the killing of two police officers in Iraq nearly 15 years ago. Prosecutors on Friday April 16, 2021 asked a judge to approve the Iraqi government’s extradition request for Ahmed, an Iraqi who came to the United States as a refugee in 2009 and became a US citizen in 2015. (Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office via AP, File) PHOENIX (AP) – Prosecutors are asking a judge to approve a motion to extradite a Phoenix driving school owner for being involved in the murder of two police officers nearly 15 years ago the Iraqi city of Fallujah as the leader of an al-Qaeda group. They said the evidence presented by Iraqi authorities was the standard for an American judge to certify an extradition request for Ali Yousif Ahmed Al-Nouri, an Iraqi native who came to the US as a refugee in 2009 and became a refugee in 2015 U.S. citizens. Prosecutors said that witnesses saw Ahmed at the site of the 2006 murders and that another person who claimed to be part of the al-Qaeda group implicated Ahmed in both of the deaths. Ahmed’s lawyers asked the judge on Friday to deny Iraq’s extradition request, saying his defense team was unable to adequately investigate the allegations due to international travel during pandemic. They also said that Ahmed’s extradition is not permitted under a provision of the US-Iraq treaty that excludes extraditions for crimes of a political nature. Ahmed, whose extradition hearing in Phoenix for the 25th member of a terrorist group. His lawyers said the violence and unrest in Iraq traumatized Ahmed and caused him to flee to Syria, where he lived in a refugee camp for three years before moving to the United States. Authorities said Ahmed spent some time in a Syrian prison despite being unable to determine what put him behind bars. Defense attorneys say Ahmed volunteered in the Phoenix refugee community and worked as a military cultural advisor ready to the nearby areas Send East to fight the Islamic State. He bought a house in Surprise on the northwestern edge of Metro Phoenix and ran the driving school, which mostly looked after immigrants from the Middle East. In both attacks on the two Fallujah officers, armed men in masks jumped out of cars, shot at the officers and fled shot, his weapon malfunctioned. Another attacker then killed the police lieutenant Issam Ahmed Hussein. The witness later identified Ahmed, who was not wearing a mask, as the leader of the group, according to court records. Four months later, Iraqi authorities said Ahmed and other men fatally shot and killed Khalid Ibrahim Mohammad while the officer was sitting outside a shop. Witnesses told authorities that, according to court records, they recognized Ahmed, whose mask had fallen off, as one of the attackers. According to the prosecutor, the role of the American court in extradition is limited to determining whether there is evidence of a probable cause for each charge. They say the decision on whether to send Ahmed to Iraq will ultimately rest in the office of US Secretary of State Antony Blinken. Under the rules of the extradition process, prosecutors said that Ahmed’s ability to produce evidence was limited and found that, according to court records, he could not attempt to create an alibi or present a defense. Defense lawyers have denied that Ahmed has been charged with crimes in Iraq. Instead, they said their client was the target of an arrest warrant seeking questioning by an Iraqi investigative tribunal, which functions more like a police and prosecutor than a trial court. Prosecutors said Ahmed’s arrest warrant shows that he is wanted in Iraq for violating a premeditated murder law. A State Department official said on court records that the United States has regularly extradited refugees wanted in other countries, although they have not yet been formally charged. Shortly after Ahmed’s arrest in January 2020, one of his lawyers said the case emerged from information provided by informants who “would have anything to gain by extraditing an alleged ‘terrorist refugee’ to the Trump administration in an election year.” His attorney also said that in the more than 80 years that the US-Iraq extradition treaty has existed, there has never been a successful extradition to Iraq.
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