Email

Print

He had been on remand fighting his extradition since his arrest more than 6 years ago. And today, after failing in the two lower courts, he struck gold in the Court of Appeal. Our 7News team was there when he was released from police custody, and allowed to exit the court a free man. We got a chance to speak to the one-time icon of the underworld, and we found an individual who was only very happy to go home to his wife and children. Daniel Ortiz has that story:

Gary Seawell, Released from Prison
"I give thanks to the most high. I thanks that I get release from this situation. I give thanks to my family and everybody who stick by my side through this."

Daniel Ortiz, 7News
"You must be the happiest man to go home right now."

Gary Seawell, Released from Prison
"Definitely. I want to go home to my children and I don't want to let them down. I give thanks to the father that I am able to fulfil my promise to them that I will be home."

Daniel Ortiz, 7News
"Explain to us how long has it been? Were you hopeful of this day? Were you doubtful that it will happen?"

Gary Seawell, Released from Prison
"I wasn't doubtful, because I had faith in my creator. So I just stick to it. Things don't happen today and I read my bible and my bible tells me you must keep the faith."

Daniel Ortiz reporting
Those were the first words Gary Seawell uttered as free man after being imprisoned for 6 years and 9 months.

Viewers will remember the cultural event it was when Cayo police caught him in jungles of Esparanza Village back in February 2010. Since then, he had been awaiting extradition to the US for allegedly trafficking millions of dollars of cocaine into that country. And after every failure, first in the Magistrate's Court, then the Supreme Court, it appeared that the Belizean authorities threw away the key they used to lock him up in jail with.

That's until his attorneys discovered a fatal error in procedure. The then Chief Magistrate's committal warrant for his incarceration at the Prison was missing, and nobody could find it. That one document, which is almost part of routine work for Magistrates, ended up becoming the undoing of the case against him.

Something so small, his attorneys nearly dismissed it, but they decided to pull on that small string, which ended up untying the tight noose that was Seawell's pending extradition to the US.

Anthony Sylvestre - Attorney for Gary Seawell
"Actually, Gary, Mr. Seawell is equally instrumental. He is the first one when we first visited him at the prison, I was taking instructions, and he pointed out that he believes that there wasn't any order that had been made. Initially I thought well, clients would say these things and we started to dig and unearthed and it prove positive that in fact this order was not made and Ben, who is a extradition proceedings expert, he was able to pull everything together and so he was in England putting together all these fantastic authorities and I here in Belize and we work together and we at the end of the day were successful and I am extremely grateful that Mr. Seawell would now be able to go home and be able to be with his family. He had very young children when he was first incarcerated - that's 6 years since and so I am sure they are extremely happy and will be overjoyed to see him."

Ben Cooper, Attorney for Gary Seawell
"The court of appeal decided today that there was no jurisdiction, no basis in law to detained Mr. Seawell, that he was effectively been unlawful detained and that is why the writ in Habeas corpus issued today and the court ordered him to be discharged on the US request."

And though it was all smiles, hugs, and tears of joy that Seawell gets to go home, his brush with American law enforcement - through Belizean authorities - may not have come to an end today.

Daniel Ortiz, 7News
"Now sir, the long arm of the American law enforcement could try again to reach out for you. Are you prepared for that if that should ever happened again?"

Gary Seawell, Released from Prison
"Well you know I got to live and I am prepared for life every day for life challenges. I give thanks to my attorneys Mr. Anthony Sylvestre and Mr. Ben Cooper for everything and stick by my side through this. I give thanks."

Coincidentally, Seawell's successful appeal is the first win on Belizean soil for British Attorney, Ben Cooper.

Daniel Ortiz, 7News
"Sir, we understand that this is your first case in Belize. Quite a nice way to end that first case."

Ben Cooper - Attorney for Gary Seawell
"It was a nice day in court yes, very pleased with the outcome."

As noted in our story, the Court of Appeal set Sewell free because the Chief Magistrate's Committal Warrant for his imprisonment was missing. The Attorney General's Ministry came to the hearing with the intention to get the Appeal Court Judges to allow them to submit new evidence. We understand that they intended to try to get that committal warrant entered as part of the case - the warrant, it seems, had suddenly appeared after the fact.

The judges were prepared to hear the crown counsels from the Attorney General's Office, but they did indicate from the start that they would take a great deal of convincing to admit supplemental evidence. They took a short adjournment to allow the crown counsels to take instructions, and when they returned, they withdrew the application. And that's about the time when all those in court realized that a bombshell decision was about to be handed down.

The Court then allowed Seawell's attorney to make his grounds of appeal, the main one being that the committal warrant was missing in all the evidence. The Crown counsel attempted to offer a defence against it, but when the judges started to challenge her arguments, she indicated that the prosecution would offer no further resistance to the appeal. With that, the case was over. The court discharged Seawell from all extradition proceedings against him, and they granted him a writ of habeas corpus.

It's a huge victory, but is it the end? That's what we asked his attorneys, along with the possibility that Gary Seawell might intend to bring a lawsuit against the Government for false imprisonment. Here's what the attorneys said:

Reporter
"Can that be the basis for a lawsuit for his part for false imprisonment?"

Ben Cooper - Attorney for Gary Seawell
"Yes, he certainly will be entitled to claim for damages for the period of his unlawful detention."

Daniel Ortiz, 7News
"Can the Americans make a second request for extradition seeing as how this one ended?"

Ben Cooper - Attorney for Gary Seawell
"All we can do is confront what is before us and that is what we've done and this is today the end of the process in terms of what was before the court."

We note that Gary Seawell's older brother, Mark is still in jail at this time. He has also been trying to get a writ of habeas corpus, which would stop him from extradited to the US as well.

Duane Sewell was caught by the Feds in Miami in February of 2007. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 17 years in prison.