Charedi man fights extradition to Israel by arguing that prison could be hit by Hamas rocket

A strictly Orthodox Israeli who said he should not be extradited from the UK because of the risk of being hit by a Hamas or Hezbollah rocket while in prison in Israel has lost his latest appeal.

Father-of-eight Efraim Grinfeld also argued at the High Court in London that prisons in Israel would be too overcrowded to house him in acceptable conditions because of the influx of security detainees following Hamas’s attack on October 7 2023.

Grinfeld had been standing trial in Israel on charges of taking part in a riot outside an electronic store selling DVDs and MP3 players in the strictly Orthodox neighbourhood of Geula in Jerusalem in the summer of 2008.

While he was awaiting the verdict in 2012, he, his wife and their then three children left the country for Canada before moving to London in 2016.