America considers them a terrorist group, and is seeking to extradite a number of their leaders to face extradition on drug-trafficking charges.But under a law passed two years ago by the conservative government of Álvaro Uribe, some 30,000 paramilitaries have disarmed and demobilised.
Initial attempts to extradite Aswat had been blocked in April 2013 by ECHR judges solely on the grounds of the severity of his illness and that there were insufficient guarantees about the accommodation and treatment available to him under detention in the US.
Sergei Lavrov, Russia's foreign minister, said the move against the British Council was a "counter measure" for the diplomatic expulsions from London that followed Russia's refusal to extradite Andrei Lugovoi, the businessman sought for Litvinenko's death.
Suspicions were focused on the Egyptian fundamentalist movement, Islamic Jihad, which earlier this week issued a threat against the US for what the group claimed was the CIA's role in helping extradite four of its activists from Albania to Cairo.
The transfer, which was opposed by Durst's lawyers, further complicates efforts by prosecutors in Los Angeles to extradite to California as quickly as possible.
For instance, many EU countries would refuse to extradite their citizens to the UK.
Lugovoi has been charged in the UK with Litvinenko's killing, but Putin refused attempts to extradite him to face trial, leading to a diplomatic row between London and Moscow.
LAST week an Austrian judge snubbed American prosecutors by refusing to extradite Dmitry Firtash, a Ukrainian oligarch whom they had charged with bribery.
But their disadvantages are also obvious: they may be illegal under both international and American law (though it could take years to determine the latter), and they will command very little international support, even among America's European allies, who are likely to refuse to extradite any suspects to face trial before such a tribunal.
European governments are unlikely to be willing to extradite them to America without reassurances that they will not be tried before military tribunals or face the death penalty, assurances which the American authorities may not be willing or able to give.
Georgia denies this, and refuses to extradite any Chechens, or to allow Russian troops to attack Chechnya from its territory.
