The Tribune

By FARRAH JOHNSON

Tribune Staff Reporter

fjohnson@tribunemedia.net

ALLEGED drug smugglers Nathaniel Knowles, Ian Bethel and Eddison Watson will remain in custody until their scheduled hearing before the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council next year, after a Supreme Court judge denied their applications for bail.

The judge ruled they may be flight risks if given bail before the London court’s decision.

The three men, along with Austin Knowles and Sean Bruey aka Shawn Saunders, were indicted on several drug related charges by a Florida court on December 12, 2003.

In 2017, the Court of Appeal dismissed the legal challenges of the five men who were fighting extradition. At the time, the men were committed to prison to await their extradition after then-Court of Appeals President Dame Anita Allen, Justice Jon Isaacs and Justice Stella Crane-Scott affirmed then-Supreme Court Senior Justice Stephen Isaacs’ refusal to grant them writs of habeas corpus in 2016.

Knowles, Bethel, and Watson’s applications for bail were supported by the affidavit of Anthony McKinney, QC. In the court document, he argued that all of the applicants had complied with the bail conditions imposed upon them since they were admitted to bail by the Supreme Court in 2003. Mr McKinney also noted that none of the applicants were flight risks and stated that they did not pose a threat to any witnesses who might give evidence against them in the United States of America.

Still, the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions objected to bail being granted to the men, after noting that the applicants’ appeal before the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council is scheduled for May 13, 2021 which is only about six months away.

On Wednesday, Justice Cheryl-Grant Thompson denied Knowles, Bethel, and Watson’s bail applications, after ruling the applicants had not produced “sufficient evidence” to establish that their case could be categorised as an “exceptional circumstance”.

In her ruling, Justice Thompson said she believed it was “probable” that the applicants would abscond if they were granted bail, due to the serious nature of the charges brought against them.

“Further, if the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council dismisses the applicants’ appeal against the decision of the Court of Appeal, they would then be extradited to the United States of America to face the alleged charges if no other avenues of appeal are available,” she said.

“If they are no longer remanded when that decision is made, they would in my view be more than likely to have ample notice and be able to make the necessary arrangements to evade being re-arrested.”

Justice Grant-Thompson also noted how Algernon Allen, counsel for the respondent, argued that it could be inferred that the applicants had access to “substantial means” due to the crimes they have allegedly committed.

“Mr Allen further averred that this inference can be made because the applicants are able to afford and hire Queen’s Counsel of the Inner Bar to represent them in their various appeals in the Court of Appeal and before the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, which according to him ‘does not come cheap,’” she stated.

“I am of the view that this inference is a valid one. I am concerned that they are flight risks and there is a real danger and likelihood that under all of the circumstances they will abscond and nothing has been submitted to the contrary.”

She insisted on the fact that the applicants were facing charges that come with severe penalties in America, would give them an “incentive to evade capture” if they are convicted and their appeal is not successful.

In denying Knowles, Watson, and Bethel’s applications for bail she said: “The applicants’ appeal before the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council is imminent, therefore I find no delay in their matter being scheduled for May 13, 2021 which is approximately six months away.

“The applicants if granted bail are likely in my view to abscond due to the severity of the charges and penalty vis a vis the possibility of each of them serving a term of life imprisonment in the United States of America. (Finally) this case is one in which no special circumstance exists which would allow the court to exercise its discretion to grant bail, indeed none have been advanced to this honourable court.”