Bangladeshi Belizean Fahkrul Alam Salim, the man wanted by the US Government will not be extradited to face charges of methamphetamine importation and money laundering. That's the written decision of Chief Magistrate Ann Marie Smith, which she handed down this morning.
As we told you, a grand jury of the state of Virginia indicted him on these charges saying that around January of 2011 Salim and others unlawfully, knowingly and intentionally combined and conspired to manufacture 500 grams or more of a mixture containing a detectable amount of methamphetamine - or crystal meth, knowing that it was to be imported into the United States.
Well, after seeing all the evidence presented by the Attorney General's Ministry, on behalf of the US, Chief Magistrate Smith did not believe that they had enough to justify his extradition. 7News spoke with his attorney, Godfrey Smith, who explained the Chief Magistrate's reasoning:
Godfrey Smith, attorney
"It was alleged that Mr. Salim, from Belize procured a shipment of pseudoephedrine from Bangladesh through various international ports to Mexico knowing they allege that pseudoephedrine would have been used for the manufacture of methamphetamine which is illegal in the United States. They allege that he caused these shipments to be made knowing they would be used for the manufacture methamphetamine for importation into the United States."
"To be successful in his extradition we argued that there would have had to produce some evidence in the bundle of documents that they submitted to the chief magistrate showing that pseudoephedrine can in fact be used to manufacture methamphetamine and they would also have had to prove that methamphetamine and Methyl-amphetamine are one and the same thing because methamphetamine for which my client Mr. Salim was charged is not listed in the list of prohibited drugs. There is something called Methyl-amphetamine which is listed, but again, it might sound like a simple point but it's very essential because there is required some kind of evidence to make the link. It is not commonly known that pseudoephedrine can be used to manufacture this drug and is neither is it commonly known that methamphetamine is the same as Methyl-amphetamine. In the bundle of documents they had to have submitted some chemist report, some piece of scientific documentation that says yes pseudoephedrine can be used for the manufacture of this drug and methamphetamine and Methyl-amphetamine are the same thing."
In coming in her decision, Chief Magistrate Smith noted that since the US Government had not established that a crime had been committed, they also failed to establish that whatever money they were accusing Alam Salim of handling was ill-gotten proceeds of a crime. That charge also did not stand up to her scrutiny.
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