By TIMOTHY SCHWAB
Feeport News Reporter
HELD WITHOUT BAIL – Keva Major is seen being escorted to court for a hearing on a request by the United States that she be extradited to that country on drug charges. Her father Donald Dorsette says his efforts to get her released on bail for the past four years have been fruitless.
For four years, Rev. Donald Dorsette has been fighting the extradition request placed on his daughter, Keva Major, from the United States government.
What began as a "blood is thicker than water" crusade to free his daughter, Dorsette said, has broadened into an ideological stance against The Bahamas' extradition treaty with the United States, which he criticizes as being a strong-arm tactic to pressure The Bahamas to comply with America's political wishes.
"With small countries, they put a big noose around your neck," Dorsette said. "You don't see anybody from the U.S. being extradited to us (in The Bahamas). It doesn't go either way. It's one-sided."
Whether or not it is one-sided remains unclear as both the Attorney General and the United States Department of Justice refused to release statistics regarding extraditions between the two countries. But in the wake of the controversial extradition of Samuel "Ninety" Knowles' to the United States, concerns like Dorsette's have surfaced widely in The Bahamas' legal community.
Attorney Maurice Glinton charges the Bahamian government with having "breached the law" in extraditing Knowles, who reportedly had another appeal hearing scheduled when he was surrendered to the United States. Glinton said Knowles was actually "expelled," not extradited, because he was taken from the country without appropriate access to the Bahamian legal system.
When asked if political pressure from the United States could have played a role in Knowles' extradition, Glinton responded that it "is the only way, really, you can explain why this happened."
Extradition treaties, such as The Bahamas has with United States, are an "accepted violation" to a country's constitution, according to attorney Rawle Maynard. But, Maynard said, The Bahamas has to be willing to "defend its own sovereignty" within an extradition treaty through allowing individuals due process under the law, which didn't happen in Knowles' case, he said.
"He could be the worst man in the world, but he's entitled to a fair trial in our courts," Maynard said of Knowles' extradition. "I don't care if he's the devil himself."
Neither the Ministry of Foreign Affairs nor the Attorney General's office was available for comment on Knowles' extradition, but neither agency has publicly admitted any fault.
Donna Lowe, deputy permanent secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said though she was not in office during Knowles' extradition, extraditing an individual is "strictly a legal process."
Dan O'Connor, the political and economic advisor at the U.S. embassy in Nassau, said any perception that the U.S. uses its political position to pressure The Bahamas is false.
"We don't exert any kind of undue influence on the process," O'Connor said. "We respect their judicial processes in The Bahamas, but we do raise these issues (about the extradition of fugitives) with our counterparts in the Bahamian government."
Douglas McNabb, a lawyer from the United States who is currently working with two Bahamians facing extradition on drug-related charges, also disagrees that politics play a role in extradition. It is the law, and the law alone, he said, which dictates an extradition process. Any requesting country, whether the United States or The Bahamas, must establish probable cause to make an extradition request, he said.
At the same time, McNabb acknowledged that the "very broad interpretation of the U.S. criminal jurisdiction" allows the United States to easily indict individuals from foreign countries.
"They think they can go after anyone," McNabb said.
McNabb went on to say that "the chances of winning an extradition case are slight because statutes are so broadly written."
Attorney Rawle Maynard believes that the scope of America's jurisdiction has extended beyond the provisions of international law. "What America is doing is exercising extraterritorial jurisdiction...contrary to the United Nations and contrary to our (Bahamian) laws," he said.
Further, Maynard said, the constitution doesn't technically allow for the extradition of Bahamian citizens, such as Knowles. The extradition act should only apply to non-nationals residing in the country, he said.
Glinton, who is currently representing two individuals facing extradition, has a case pending before the Privy Council in London that challenges the constitutionality of extraditing Bahamians.
Two-Way Street?
Though statistics were not available about the total number of individuals extradited from The Bahamas to the United States, The Bahama Journal in September reported that the United States currently has 24 outstanding extradition requests in The Bahamas. There have been no reports of extraditions or requests since then.
U.S. Ambassador John Rood was quoted in that same Bahama Journal article as saying he believed The Bahamas had two outstanding extradition requests to the United States. The status of those requests or the date of their issue is not known.
Donna Lowe, deputy permanent secretary of foreign affairs, said her department used to keep statistics on extraditions, and though she was unable to provide specific data, she said the number of extradition requests from the United States to The Bahamas over the last 10 years is "quite large," likely more than 100.
According to the website for the United States embassy in Nassau, the U.S. last year alone received 432 fugitives on extradition from more than 50 foreign countries and sent off 104 fugitives to 30 different countries.
The Freeport News was able to acquire a document from the United States embassy dated from 2001 that said that in the 15 years between 1986 and 2001, the United States returned 29 fugitives to The Bahamas, though it did not state how many were sent through extradition and how many were through deportation.
According to police Inspector Edric Poitier, officer in charge of prosecutions in Grand Bahama, most fugitives returned to The Bahamas arrive not through extradition but through deportation, when they are caught illegally residing in a foreign country. Such a "stroke of luck," as Poitier refers to it, avoids the long court processes that usually accompany an extradition request.
The number of Bahamian fugitives who have fled the country is unknown, but thousands, likely tens of thousands, of individuals face outstanding warrants in The Bahamas. In New Providence alone, more than 5,000 warrants have been issued just this year, and in Grand Bahama, there are around 5,700 outstanding warrants issued since 2003. Many, perhaps most, of the warrants are for traffic offences, but some criminals charged with more serious crimes, according to Inspec-tor Poitier, do flee the country as fugitives.
"It goes without saying," Poitier said.
Relying on a "stroke of luck," as Poitier said The Bahamas often does to capture fugitives, contrasts sharply to the United States' criminal-searching efforts, which employ billions of dollars just on their war on drugs.
And a recent report by the US Department of State noted The Bahamas' tradition of pursuing "extradition requests vigorously and, at times, at considerable expense."
According to Lowe, there is no "at times" about it. "We take these requests very seriously," Lowe said.
"It takes a lot of man-hours from the Attorney General," she added, noting that the long appeal processes that often accompany extraditions mean that the Attorney General, who represents the requesting country, gets dragged into years of litigation.
Lowe said The Bahamas has extradition treaties with around 60 countries, but most requests come from the United States.
When asked if The Bahamas might expend too many of its limited crime-fighting resources on capturing fugitives requested by other countries, Lowe said, "It's part of being a responsible member of the international community."
Activism against Extradition
Phillippa Russell, a radio talk show host based in Nassau, has participated in a small community activism effort against extradition, saying the Bahamian government has historically been intimidated into complying with American extradition requests. "The question (put to indicted fugitives) is not one of innocence or guilt. It's a question of what day you will surrender," Russell said.
Russell said her concerns with extradition were heightened in 2003 when then-U.S. Ambassador Richard Blan-kenship went on record threatening to retract military funding and other financial aid to The Bahamas if the country did not sign a bilateral agreement to snub the International Criminal Court (ICC), which can ask member countries to extradite fugitive war criminals to stand trial.
Because the United States refuses to recognize the authority of the ICC, it attempted to sign agreements with dozens of countries like The Bahamas to deter them from ever extraditing an American to the international court. Russell said this kind of pressure characterizes the political influence the American government can have over The Bahamas.
Russell also takes exception with "Ninety" Knowles having been labeled a "drug kingpin" by the American government, a measure that has effectively disallowed Knowles access to his money on the suspicion that it was illegally obtained. Unable to afford pri-
vate legal representation, Knowles is currently standing trial in Florida with a court-appointed lawyer.
"You can allege that somebody came by his money by illegal means, but how do you know the means of his acquiring the money without a trial?" Rawle Maynard said.
"The guy's already convicted," Maynard went on to say. "There is no way in my mind he can ever get a fair hearing."
According to U.S. attorney Douglas McNabb, getting competent legal representation is essential in extradition cases because the scope of the law is so narrow. "The overwhelming majority of lawyers....don't know anything about extradition law," McNabb said.
"An individual (facing extradition) has got to be well off and has to be smart enough to have (legal) counsel representation from
both countries involved," McNabb added, indicating that because two countries are involved in an extradition, two different legal systems usually are, too.
Another challenge individuals charged with extradition face is getting bail. Maurice Glinton is currently representing two individuals facing extradition who he's been able to get them free on bail, though he said that is unique in today's courts.
"The approach of late has been that the individual (facing extradition) is incarcerated even before there's been a hearing on the merits of the case," Glinton said.
Meanwhile, Rev. Dorsette said his four years of attempting to get his daughter out on bail, including protests in Nassau, have proven fruitless.
