A Spanish prosecutor recommended on Friday that the United States receive James Cox Chambers Jr, a multimillionaire media heir, in an extradition request that his defense team describes as politically motivated. The High Court in Spain is expected to issue a ruling in the coming weeks, after which the government cabinet will make the final determination on the case.
Chambers, who is also known by the nickname Fergie, was arrested by Spanish authorities on July 10 while on holiday in Ibiza. He has been held in custody since that time. The US extradition request lists charges of riot, conspiracy to commit riot, and international money laundering.
The riot charges relate to the 2023 targeting of the Israeli defense firm Elbit Systems in New Hampshire by pro-Palestinian activists. Chambers has described himself as an anti-imperialist and communist, and in various interviews and social media posts, he has called for the destruction of the United States. His spokesperson noted that he received 250 million dollars after divesting from his family’s media conglomerate, Cox Enterprises, in 2023.
According to the UK’s Guardian newspaper, which cited Chambers’s legal representative, the US seeks his return for allegedly sending 7.5 million dollars from the US to a Tunisian bank account several years ago. At the time of the transfer, Chambers was living in Tunisia. The funds were allegedly used to support Hamas. The Guardian also reported that a week after the Hamas-led invasion of southern Israel in October 2023, which killed 1,200 people mostly civilians, Chambers posted on X that no faction of the Palestinian resistance had done anything wrong.
Chambers’s legal team stated that he has donated over one million dollars to humanitarian causes in Gaza and has paid legal fees for members of the activist group Palestine Action. That group was designated a terrorist organization by both the US and the UK following actions that targeted Israel-linked defense companies. The UK ban took effect on July 5, 2025, shortly after a break-in at a Royal Air Force base in June 2025 where activists damaged two military planes.
In June, a judge sentenced four activists to jail for raiding an Elbit site near Bristol in western England in 2024. The raid caused over one million pounds in damage, and one activist hit a police officer twice on the back with a sledgehammer, resulting in a fractured spine. Prosecutor Juan Hernandez Villalba told the court that the request is based on organized and financed actions that caused significant material damage, rather than mere ideology.
Chambers has denied wrongdoing, stating that while he was present at the protests, he caused no damage. He explained that he transferred his own money to Tunisia to fund his company’s sponsorship of the soccer club Club Africain and a gym. He told the court that he has been in prison since July and is asking for justice, reason, and mercy.
Chambers applied for asylum in Spain, citing political persecution, and refused to consent to extradition on Friday. Under Spanish law, extradition cannot proceed if the request is found to be politically motivated. His lawyer, Aitor Martinez, argued that the individuals who carried out the damage in New Hampshire were convicted of misdemeanors, which carry a 60-day sentence and fall below the one-year threshold of the US-Spain extradition treaty.
The case is politically sensitive for Spain’s Socialist-led government, which is known for its pro-Palestinian stance. This position has drawn rebuke from the Trump administration and contributed to wider tensions with Washington. The US Department of Justice has declined to comment on the case against Chambers, whose father is James Cox Chambers, a billionaire part-owner of Cox Enterprises.
