Eveniment

Israel can hand suspected drug kingpin to US: court

Wed Nov 30, 5:25 AM ET



Israel's Supreme Court gave the go-ahead on Wednesday for the extradition to the United States of an Israeli suspected of running an international ring that smuggled 700,000 Ecstasy pills into New York.

Zeev Rosenstein has been in custody for more than a year in Israel, where he appealed to the country's highest court against the decision to send him to the United States to stand trial.

A three-judge Supreme Court panel unanimously rejected the appeal, officials said. Rosenstein could ask a wider panel of Supreme Court justices to bar his extradition.

Israeli police, in conjunction with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency, began investigating suspicions against Rosenstein in 2001 after U.S. law enforcement officials caught smugglers bringing the Ecstasy shipment into the United States.