25/04/2002 (Agence Europe) - Amnesty International urges the Fifteen to include strong guarantees in a future agreement on judicial cooperation with the United States. The Justice and Home Affairs Council will seek, on Friday, to adopt the mandate that will allow the Presidency and the Commission to negotiate this agreement. The organisation for the protection of human rights recalls that it denounced violations of human rights and humanitarian law carried out by the United States in the way, it says, the US treats prisoners held in Guantanamo. It therefore calls for any agreement with the United States to require that no-one may be extradited if that person runs the risk of suffering serious violation of human rights, such as political prisoners, of being brought to justice for trials that are not recognised by the international community as fair, or of risking the death penalty, torture or other forms of inhumane or degrading treatment. This requirement would be the reflection of the European Charter of Fundamental Rights, stresses Amnesty, which also calls for a specific clause for the protection of refugees and asylum seekers, if they are to be extradited towards the United States.