Gary Seawell continues to fight extradition

Gary Seawell

Gary Seawell, wanted by U.S. authorities, along with his sibling, for allegedly organizing a drug trafficking ring between 1994 and 1997, continues to fight for his freedom, despite a ruling by Chief Magistrate Anne Marie Smith in October 2013 to have him extradited.  The matter has been elevated to the Supreme Court and a hearing was scheduled to commence this morning before Justice Michelle Arana.  Following a lengthy delay, the case was later adjourned since the necessary information to proceed with a trial hasn’t been passed on to the higher court.  The predicament, says Attorney Arthur Saldivar, is similar to what transpired in the case of Mark Seawell, who is also fighting extradition to the United States.

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Arthur Saldivar, Attorney for Gary Seawell

“The matter today was adjourned to March eighteenth. The documents that the court seeks to rely on from the magistrates court were not forwarded for us to be able to have the arguments be led in court today but we believe that by the eighteenth we should be in a position to do so.”

Isani Cayetano

“Was there a reason given as to why these documents weren’t forwarded to the higher court?”

Arthur Saldivar

Arthur Saldivar

“Well, again, I’m not privy to the answer to that.  This is the second time that something of this nature has happened.  You would remember that it had happened before in the Mark Seawell matter where the same documents were not forwarded at that time so I guess it’s par for the course.  It comes along with these kinds of procedures I guess. Certainly I believe my client has every right to his freedom.  I believe that given what is there before the court and what was there before the court at the magistrates court level that this should not have been necessary.  The main ground that we are looking at apart from abuse of process is the fact that there is no admissible evidence before the courts, none of the statements or affidavits that were included in the bundle in the request for extradition bore on them the oath that is required for depositions to be so-called depositions in that the makers never stated, or it’s never articulated in the document that they knew that they had the duty to tell the truth or that they knew that failing that duty to tell the court that they would be susceptible to the penalty of perjury.  Where that is concerned if it is not there by virtue of what our Indictable Procedures Act dictates, you have pure hearsay and pure hearsay is inadmissible at trial.  So this is where we come down and we look forward to having the arguments being made.”