In Friday's Newscast, we told you about the beginning of Rhett Fuller's hearing in the Court of Appeal as part of his last attempt to fight extradition to the United States.
Well today, his appeal was heard to completion, and his attorney, Eamon Courtenay, argued that Minister of Foreign Affairs Wilfred Elrington made the wrong approach to come up with his final decision on the extradition by adopting the decision of the Privy Council.
Their main position was that Fuller was not given a fair hearing from the Minister because he already made up his mind based on the Privy Council's decision, and as a result, the Minister did not properly consider any of the other issues that a Foreign Minister can, in the interest of justice to the person whose extradition is sought.
The appeal hearing went up to just an hour before news time, and when it ended, 7News asked Attorney Eamon Courtenay about his submissions. Here's how he explained it:
Eamon Courtenay, Attorney for Rhett Fuller
"The entire basis of the application was to try to establish that Mr. Justice Awich did not consider our submissions. We have submitted that Minister Elrington did not properly weigh the evidence that Mr. Fuller had put before him and that in fact what he did was he looked at what the Privy Council had said and said oh I come to the same conclusion. Mr. Justice Awich seems to be saying that he agrees with that."
"Our submission to the court was that the Rhett Fuller decision in the Privy Council has nothing to do with what was before the minister and we hope that we can convince them of that - that our next point would be when you look at the evidence you will see that Mr. Justice Awich did not deal with the complaints that Mr. Fuller was raising. I think you can see that the court was giving me a warm time with the arguments as they did to Ms. Perdomo, so we just have to wait and see."
Daniel Ortiz
"Can you tell us a little bit about the issues you think that Mr. Rhett Fuller didn't get a opportunity to fully ventilate?"
Eamon Courtenay, Attorney for Rhett Fuller
"What we have to understand is as the courts have said the judicial process is ended and now it's for the minister to make a decision as a minister; is this the way I want to treat a Belizean? Should a Belizean who has been made to wait 8 years before a request for extradition has come, should that person be sent? The minister has to consider why is it that the Americans did not disclose all the contacts that they had with Mr. Fuller prior to them making the request for extradition. Another important factor that the minister absolutely did not look at which the cases say he can look at is the effect of this on his family; Mr. Fuller has a daughter that is suffering from autism and what happens, what is the effect of that on Mr. Fuller's daughter, Mr. Fuller's family if he is extradited? None of that was considered by the minister and those are the matters that the minister ought to have taken into account and to determine in our submission that Mr. Fuller should not go and so we are saying to the court that he just failed to do this and he failed to do it because he felt that the Privy Council has decided everything already which is wrong."
Daniel Ortiz
"Sir, we can see the tenacity of your client. Has he made any indications (we know that we are asking you to speculate) should the court of appeals rule against him in this application?"
Eamon Courtenay, Attorney for Rhett Fuller
"We haven't really discuss that but I can say that we have been - a number of lawyers have come to me concerning the decision of the court last Friday when they refuse to let in the cables and a number of senior lawyers have said that they believe that that's something that the Caribbean Court of Justice ought to look at. So, at least that's one option but in terms of Mr. Fuller, Mr. Fuller remains very hopeful that we will get a positive decision from the court of appeals, so we haven't adjusted our minds yet to the Caribbean Court of Justice."
The Court of Appeal has reserved their decision on this matter, and their ruling will be handed down at a later date to be announced.
Email
Print