Can Wikileaks save Rhett Fuller from extradition to the United States?
As we've been reporting, he's been fighting extradition to the US for 14 years.
He is wanted for first degree Murder in connection with the fatal shooting of an American National Larry Miller which occurred in 1990.
He has tried almost everything legally possible to resist the request from the US, and today, as part of his last stand in the Belizean courts, his attorney, Eamon Courtenay, made an application to the Court of Appeal.
They wanted to have new evidence admitted to the case which included 3 US diplomatic cables sent to the US.
These cables documented proof that Hon. Wilfred Elrington, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Attorney General, had contact with members of the US Embassy of Belize.
Their contention was that Elrington, being the minister who was the final arbiter as to whether or not Fuller should be extradited, introduced bias in his judgment when he had these discussions with the US Embassy representatives about Fuller's case, which, they say, would have been as serious as a judge speaking casually to an attorney about a case outside of court.
Courtenay asked the court to consider admitting the cables because Minister Elrington should have disclosed this information in the original case for judicial review which was argued and struck down by Justice Awich in the Supreme Court.
After hearing the application, the Court of Appeal refused it. We spoke to Fuller's wife outside of court who told us that this is just a minor loss, and the full appeal is still pending.
Here's what she told us about how she found these cables, which then led to the application in the first place:
Ann Marie Fuller, wife of Rhett Fuller
"It's only natural that I'd be trying to do as much as I could to assist him and I just found the hearings with the Foreign Minister had been very strange and I thought that I might just do a little research on my own and I just came across them."
"The attorney was saying that he was just going over the overall prejudice of the case - that fact that the person who is the safeguard by law for appellants as in Rhett's case is also the attorney for the US Government and the fact that he had certain conversations with the people from the US which as he mentioned there is nothing unusual about the Foreign Minister doing that but he also wears the hat of Attorney General and should have disclosed information so that our council could have dealt with the information and acted accordingly. This was put in as additional evidence, we still have a lot of submissions that range all the way back to the Privy Council's decision and where we find that the Privy Council's decisions were not fully aired out in the Minister's hearing and the regulations and the guidelines that they put forward were not really adhere to, so that was the basis of requesting a judicial review which Judge Awich - he rejected the review request but fortunately we were able to get this review before the court of appeals."
"We still have all of that evidence for them to consider. They've already seen that the information exists and that in deed the minister did act in an unusual way which is prejudicial to my husband."
Daniel Ortiz
"You guys have been fighting this case for years. I imagine that its very expensive and very taxing on your family emotionally. How do you guys keep up the faith seeing that the many steps that you've taken have struck down by the court?"
Ann Marie Fuller
"I think the fact that our family has been fighting for the length of time that we have been fighting is a testament to the fact that we believe what we have submitted in the bundle of evidence for my husband's behalf because if we didn't believe it then we wouldn't put everything that we have into it and I hope that the judges will consider even that fact. In mean in life sometimes you have to stand up for what you believe in."
The full appeal of Justice Awich's decision to refuse judicial review of Minister Elrington's decision will continue next week.
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