FBI agents raided the Ibiza, Spain, vacation rental of ۴۱-year-old James “Fergie” Chambers, a US citizen and wealthy donor to leftwing and humanitarian projects worldwide, in the days following his arrest last month, the Guardian has learned.
Baltasar Garzón, a human rights lawyer representing Chambers, revealed the details in an exclusive interview. Chambers is wanted for extradition by the Trump administration for alleged financial support of Hamas, as well as other charges.
Garzón, one of Europe’s most famous human rights lawyers, characterized the case as “very strange, one of the most remarkable I’ve worked on”. He told the Guardian the indictment against Chambers was “pretty weak and diffuse”.
The case centers on Chambers allegedly laundering $۷.۵m that he wired several years ago from a US bank account to Tunisia, where Chambers lived at the time, and allegedly using the money to support the Palestinian group. The exact details of the indictment against Chambers remain sealed.
Chambers, heir to one of the richest families in the US, has supported a handful of humanitarian projects in Gaza with funds totaling more than $۱m, a member of his legal team said shortly after his ۱۰ July arrest.
It is the first known case of the US seeking to extradite a citizen over alleged support for Hamas.
Garzón spoke with the Guardian on Thursday shortly after his second visit with Chambers, now in his second month in a Spanish jail. The former judge and veteran human rights lawyer said the FBI didn’t find anything in the raid.
He also indicated that the road ahead for Chambers may be longer than what a Spanish official told the Guardian shortly after his arrest, potentially lasting months.
First, US authorities have until Wednesday – ۴۵ days after his arrest – to submit documentation supporting the extradition petition and the underlying indictment, which remains sealed, Garzón said.
If the US doesn’t meet this deadline, the petition expires and Chambers is released. If the deadline is met, the Spanish government evaluates the paperwork over several weeks. After that, the case winds its way through various legal and government bodies. One thing being considered from the start of the process and forward is if the petition is politically motivated, which would allow the Spanish government to deny extradition.
“It’s noteworthy that humanitarian aid and defending human rights is being criminalized,” Garzón said. “It’s a case of persecution … and they’re not going to be able to find one cent directed at terrorist or violent acts.”
The Spanish lawyer’s five-decade career includes seeking the extradition from London of the former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, as well as pursuing accountability for human rights abuses in Spain, Argentina and elsewhere.
Chambers, a self-described communist and anti-imperialist, is heir of the Cox family, owners of Atlanta-based Cox Communications. As part of a settlement in which his family severed ties with him at the time, he sold stock back to his family worth about $۲۵۰m in mid-۲۰۲۳. Since then he has been funding an estimated ۱۰۰ projects in ۲۰ countries, his partner, Stella Schnabel, an actor and activist, said last month.
Schnabel said the funds at the center of the US charges actually went to buy the popular football club Club Africain, and to pay off debt and past-due salaries as well as rebuilding a training center and building youth football fields.
The club went on to win the Tunisian football league in May.
Chambers has been extensively profiled in US media and was interviewed on local TV news station in New Hampshire in late ۲۰۲۳ about a direct action against Elbit Systems, an Israeli defense contractor, staged by a group whose legal fees he paid, then called Palestine Action – a group proscribed in the UK as a “terrorist organization”.
Garzón also revealed that the US indictment was filed in New Hampshire.
Chambers’ public comments on Israel and Gaza are part of the context in which the case is unfolding, Garzón said. For example, a week after the ۷ October ۲۰۲۳ Hamas attacks on Israel, Chambers posted on X about Israel’s response: “Stop calling it ‘collective punishment’/ There’s nothing to be ‘punished’ for/ No faction of the Palestinian resistance, Hamas or other, has done *anything* wrong/ It’s simply genocide/ Like it has been.”
He has also been a staunch critic of the US and told a reporter in ۲۰۲۴: “I think the most important thing for the prosperity of humanity is the destruction of the US.”
“[Chambers] is a person who is not aligned with the views of the US government,” Garzón said. “There’s a political context to all this.”
Garzón’s visit with Chambers on Thursday lasted two hours. Spain has rejected requests to release him on bail to date but the issue could be revisited if the US submits its paperwork on time and the case continues, the attorney said.
“His freedom is being denied,” Garzón said. “It’s incomprehensible to him … as a defender of human rights.”
He also said funds have been at least temporarily halted to the Sameer Project in Gaza, which helped support a bakery producing thousands of loaves of free bread daily during Israel’s ongoing siege on the territory.
On ۱۰ August, the project announced a “pause” in its operations on Instagram. The three-year-old project also supplies food, water and medical care. “[T]ens of thousands of Palestinians will feel the effects,” said the announcement.
