7 News Belize

4 Years Later, Deon Bruce Still Fighting Extradition
posted (December 18, 2017)
For almost 4 years now, Belizean Deon Bruce has been at the Belize Central Prison awaiting his fate while he continues to fight his extradition to the United States.

He is wanted in Chicago on grand jury charges of murder and attempted murder. US law enforcement has accused him of the July 2010 shooting of Americans Aaron Carter and Bryan Rodgers.

So far, he has lost at the Magistrate's Court, after the former Chief Magistrate, Ann Marie Smith, ruled that he should be extradited. He also lost at the Supreme Court when Justice Courtney Abel refused to allow a judicial review of the Chief Magistrate's decision.

At this moment, he has a pending appeal at the Court of Appeal that hasn't taken place as yet, and so today, his attorneys made another attempt at the Supreme Court level to get him freed, via a habeas corpus application.

Again, that failed, but after the judgement was handed down by Justice Michelle Arana, his attorneys told us outside of court that this setback has only strengthened their resolved to see him discharged of all extradition proceedings:

Anthony Sylvestre, Attorney for Deon Bruce
"At the end extradition proceedings way back in January 2014, the Chief Magistrate had made an order for him to be extradited. Subsequent to that applications were made to the Supreme Court by my learned friend Miss Matura and those applications they were heard and they were refused and we brought this application today, it's a habeas corpus application. The authorities tell you that you can bring successive habeas corpus applications."

Audrey Matura, Attorney for Deon Bruce
"There were initial proceedings for the extradition and after that I did the judicial review and a habeas corpus which was refused by the court. I then appeal the judicial review, not the habeas corpus which is a very important point, because the crown was saying in this case that he had already has an appeal against a habeas corpus. That is not true. But as my learned friend Mr. Sylvestre said 'you can bring as many habeas corpus,' because it's a review every minute to see if the person is properly detained."

Anthony Sylvestre, Attorney for Deon Bruce
"We brought this new application to the court and we were relying on the two previous decisions in the Gary Seawell and Mark Seawell matters and you may recall in relation to those matters both brothers were freed and they were discharged from extradition proceedings when the warrants that were issued, they were examined by the Court of Appeal and by the Chief Justice and they were held to have been invalid - they were not in compliance with the provisions of the Extradition Act. So we brought a similar argument and raised a similar issue in relation to this new habeas corpus application for Deon Bruce. What the learned Madam Justice Arana indicated that because Mr. Bruce may have had an appeal in relation to one of the previous claims, that it would be best that the Court of Appeal hears and determines this new matter which is being raised."

Audrey Matura, Attorney for Deon Bruce
"We do not believe that he should be extradited. We do not believe the process was done properly and legally and I must applaud Mr. Sylvestre because the arguments he puts forward are very good arguments. he did a very good job on that and we as attorneys know that there are different tiers that we can go to the court and we are not satisfied with a decision here, we go to the higher court until we reach the final court and we know in extradition proceedings we can even go an appeal to the Minister of Foreign Affairs. But I am confident that based on the work that my colleague has done, that at the end of the day when we go to the court of appeal that those arguments can prevail."

Whenever his appeal is heard, we'll be there to tell you how it goes.

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