Spanish authorities arrested James “Fergie” Chambers, a 41-year-old US citizen and wealthy donor to leftwing and humanitarian projects, last Friday in Ibiza. He has been transferred to a prison in Madrid.
The Trump administration’s Department of Justice is seeking his extradition for alleged financial support of Hamas, according to a spokesperson for the Spanish high court. Chambers’s wife, Stella Schnabel, an actor and daughter of painter Julian Schnabel, described the arrest and the family’s ordeal.
Although Chambers had been locked up for nearly a week, Schnabel didn’t break down until Thursday, when she finally spoke to him for several minutes – enough time, she said, “for us to say we love each other and for him to say: ‘Tell the kids I love them.’” She still hadn’t seen him. “It’s been very stressful,” she said.
The court has two weeks to decide on his appeal for bail, and 40 days to rule on the US extradition request. If the court denies extradition, the case closes. If it grants it, the council of ministers has the final say, according to the spokesperson.
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The indictment against Chambers is sealed. This is the first known case of the United States seeking extradition of a citizen over alleged support for Hamas, veteran attorney Stanley Cohen told reporters earlier this week.
A Family Vacation Interrupted
The couple had been on a family vacation last week, accompanied by their five-year-old son and other relatives. They were considering a move to Ibiza. Last Friday, they were driving along a dirt road on the Spanish island to visit a potential school for their son when seven police officers in several cars cut them off.
“I said to Fergie: ‘You know what’s happening, right?’” Schnabel recalled. The officers told her she couldn’t film them with her phone and handcuffed Chambers.
The arrest took less than five minutes.
Chambers has known since 2015 that he was on the US federal government’s radar, due to activism against police in Atlanta. A self-described communist and anti-imperialist, he is heir to one of the richest families in the US, the owners of Atlanta-based Cox Communications.
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He sold stock back to his family worth about $250 million in mid-2023 and has since been funding an estimated 100 projects in 20 countries, Schnabel said.
The Charges and the Legal Battle
The US is accusing Chambers of laundering $7.5 million wired several years ago from an American bank account to Tunisia, where the couple lived at the time, and somehow using the money to support Hamas.
Chambers’s attorney, Josep Riba, said in a statement that Spain’s participation in a conference convened by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio — which aimed to discredit leftwing activity as terrorism — “has raised his family’s concern that Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez … may comply with Washington’s politically motivated attack.”
Sánchez has otherwise been known for standing up to President Donald Trump and voicing solidarity with Palestinians.
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On Thursday, one of the lawyers defending Chambers told Schnabel that several Tunisians in prison in Madrid recognized the American and voiced their support. “He’s a national hero there,” Schnabel said.
As of this week, Schnabel is quickly learning about the political and legal intricacies of Spain.
She had her first meeting on Friday with a legal team assembled by Baltasar Garzón, an acclaimed Spanish former judge who sought the extradition of former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet from London and pursued accountability for human rights abuses in Spain, Argentina, and elsewhere. “I feel supported at a high level,” Schnabel said. “I’m actively trying to meet with anyone who understands” the law surrounding extradition.
Schnabel is struggling to understand how her husband landed in jail “for helping people experiencing genocide,” she said. “It’s incredible that this can happen to someone who is supporting people trying to exist and survive colonization and ethnic cleansing.”
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