On August 16, 1972, Moroccan Air Force officer Lt. Col. Mohamed Amekrane was executed after a failed coup attempt against King Hassan II. Amekrane had fled to Gibraltar, a British territory, but was swiftly returned to Morocco by British authorities, leading to his trial and execution.
His widow, Lalla Fatma Amekrane, took the case to the European Commission of Human Rights (ECHR), arguing that the UK's decision to return her husband violated his right to life. In 1974, the Commission ruled that the UK had indeed breached Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights, as it knew or should have known that Amekrane faced a real risk of the death penalty.
The case became a landmark in European human rights law, establishing the principle of non-refoulement in the context of the death penalty. The UK was found to have acted unlawfully by exposing Amekrane to a foreseeable risk of execution.
This ruling predates the UK's formal acceptance of the right of individual petition to the European Court of Human Rights, which came in 1966, but it set a precedent for later cases involving the transfer of suspects to countries where they might face torture or death.
