Anderson confident Fuller will stay in Belize
This morning, Chief Justice Abdullah Conteh handed down his reasons for granting Rhett Fuller bail on June 16th. Besides Fuller’s apparent entanglement in the legal system resulting in over a year and a half of imprisonment, Conteh emphasized that the decision was within the court’s discretion. Attorney for the defendant, Kirk Anderson, is now preparing for the extradition order still pending. Anderson is confident he’ll be able to keep his client in Belize.
Kirk Anderson, Fuller’s Attorney
“The judgement was, in my view, a brilliant one, clearly the Chief Justice has set out the relevant considerations for any court, in deciding whether or not to grant bail. He has also set out the fact that in extradition cases, whilst the court ought to be somewhat wary in granting bail, still yet bail can be granted. I think he ended quite rightly by suggesting the Solicitor General was quite right in his position that in fact that the bail application ought not to have been opposed. My client had been detained for twenty months through no faults of his own. Matters have occurred whereby his case has not been concluded in the courts of Belize. So thankfully now, bail has been granted to him and we look forward to continuing the case in the near future.”
Janelle Chanona
“Now that your client is out on bail, what’s the next move judicially?”
Kirk Anderson
“There is a Hibius Corpus application, pending for him, and as soon as we get a hearing date for that, we’ll be prepared to proceed with this case.”
Janelle Chanona
“If you may, can you tell me what is Rhett’s morale at this point, now that bail has been granted?”
Kirk Anderson
“Well in all honesty, I haven’t spoken with him since he has been granted bail. I’ll be speaking with him later today, but I have no doubt, that he is in fact in good spirits, knowing that in fact bail has been granted. And I’m sure he would like to thank all the Belizean people for their support up to this point in time.”
Kirk Anderson
“There can be no case against Mr. Fuller in the Unites States, until he is brought up to the United States. That’s what these extradition proceedings are designed to bring about. So until they have concluded these proceeding here, the prosecuting authority, then there can be no question of trying Mr. Fuller anywhere else.”
Janelle Chanona
“Going into those hearings, are you confident that you will be able to keep your client in Belize?”
Kirk Anderson
“Well yes, we have every confidence. We feel that the circumstances are in Mr. Fuller’s favour. One of the things that we feel?the issue of the delay in proceeding with the matter, is becoming even more pertinent as the days goes by, but there are a number of other matters, and I wouldn’t want to go any further in discussing them specifically.”
Rhett Fuller has surrendered his travel documents and must report to police every Monday and Friday morning. He is out on bail in the amount of $50,000 and two sureties of the same amount.
