Because he cannot be tried for crimes in a British court, claimed Lord Bingham, he cannot be extradited to Spain, a basic principle of most extradition agreements.Sovereign immunity is a concept with an ancient lineage.
The FBI wants Firtash extradited from Vienna to face multimillion-dollar bribery charges, which Firtash denies.
He spent three years in prison in Zimbabwe and was then extradited to Equatorial Guinea.
A life-size cardboard cutout which accompanies the Farc negotiation team in Havana is a symbol of their worst fears: it shows an image of rebel commander Simon Trinidad, who in 2004 was captured and extradited to the United States where he was convicted on terrorism charges.
He said the new version gave British judges discretion to reject warrants and not to allow individuals to be extradited if there was going to be a long period of detention.
Libya has said it will delay the trial of Muammar Gaddafi's son Saif al-Islam, to gather evidence against him from the former spy chief who was extradited to Tripoli earlier this week.
It was not immediately clear if Souvannarath will be extradited to the US.
Mann was extradited from Zimbabwe to Equatorial Guinea in January last year after being convicted in Zimbabwe of attempting to buy arms for an alleged coup plot and sentenced to seven years imprisonment.
Sean Heiss, 30, from Surbiton, south London, was already serving a 22-year jail sentence for killing Clementina Liscano in Barcelona when he was extradited back to Britain to be tried for the earlier murder of 58-year-old Margaret Sheehy.
He was extradited to the US in 2007.
"In light of the specific assurances and additional information received from the United States' government, and the careful examination of the case by the high court in the United Kingdom, the [ECHR] found that it could not be said that there was a real risk that Mr Aswat would be subjected to treatment contrary to article 3 if extradited," the judgment explained.
