No bail for Brown brothers

History was not made in the cramped confines of courtroom number one this morning as Chief Magistrate Herbert Lord denied bail to the Brown brothers. In prefacing his ruling, Lord maintained that even though the case gets more difficult everyday and there is no end in sight, his decision today is based strictly on the laws of Belize and the legal persuasions laid before him by the defence and prosecution. But even as the Chief Magistrate acknowledged his court’s right to grant bail, in the end Lord stated, “At this time the court declines to use its inherent jurisdiction and grant bail” and that defence “submissions, though worthy, have not subdued obligations of the treaty” and “the treaty is paramount.” In closing, Lord reiterated that he was “very sorry” but he “can’t see this court making history” and then gave leave to defence counsels to either reapply or take the matter to the Supreme Court.

Meanwhile, as Brown family members reacted emotionally to the Chief Magistrate’s ruling, lead defence attorney Dean Barrow was already seeing a silver lining.

Dean Barrow, Lead Defence Attorney
“I don’t think one can quarrel with the magistrate. It was worth the effort, but we don?t have any problems with the ruling. What I will say is this, the magistrate very properly was concerned about not violating the treaty obligations. If you look at the treaty, the treaty actually provides for when somebody is arrested for extradition purposes on a provisional warrant, for that person to be held for sixty days. So in a sense, if the magistrate is in fact saying before sixty days I give bail, I will be going against the treaty provisions, I think he is right. After sixty days in my view, it’s a brand new ballgame, that’s why I agreed to the adjournment until the eighteen of September, because the eighteenth will make exactly sixty days since they would have been in custody. I think and at that stage, either a renewed application before him or an application to the Supreme Court will be made for bail and I would think that there is a much better chance of succeeding then.”

Janelle Chanona
“There were allegations that the prosecutor, Solicitor General Elson Kaseke may have been influenced by other factors today than the law? Would you speak to that?”

Dean Barrow
“No, I don’t know about that and I don’t want to get into that.”

Janelle Chanona
“What of the case stated motion? What’s happening with that?”

Dean Barrow
“The magistrate is in the possession of an affidavit that the attorney general has sworn, so it appears that in support of Kaseke’s application to have the case stated ruling reviewed. I don’t know whether it’s been filed because he hasn’t sent us a copy, but certainly it’s been prepared. So I would imagine that if it’s not yet filed, it will be filed today or tomorrow. I hope that the vacation judge, who is Justice Lucas, would be prepared to hear it in the next two weeks. The Chief Justice doesn’t actually come back until mid-September. But even if we have to wait until mid September, no great harm done because as I said, mid-September is just about the due date for another bail application. So if things are frozen until just around that time that’s okay. Immediately after the eighteenth I expect that everything will start to move with some rapidity and if it doesn’t, we will certainly be making the requisite applications to try to move things along.”

Janelle Chanona
“And your clients understand that?”

Dean Barrow
“Yes, I’ve explained to them that really, we can’t fault the magistrate. Given the treaty provisions that speak to sixty days, I don’t fault the magistrate.”

The case against Andrew Brown has been adjourned until September nineteenth. Meanwhile, both the defence and prosecution have agreed to special arrangements being made so that under police guard, the defendants could see their elderly ailing father three days a week while in remand. Andrew and his brother Floyd Brown are wanted in the U.S. on charges of importation of forty-two pounds of cocaine into Port Everglades, Florida in 1999.