It's been about 10 months since we last reported on the extradition proceedings against attorney Andrew Bennett.
The US Government has made an extradition request, and they want him to be sent to the District of Puerto Rico to stand trial for 7 counts of money laundering. The American authorities say that they have evidence that he took a backpack containing 250,000 dollars from one of their agents, who was posing as representative of a fictitious drug cartel with Colombian and Puerto Rican ties. They allegedly also have evidence of the conversations between Bennett and this agent about this money, in which it was made clear to Bennett that this organization was looking for a money laundering operation, and that Bennett allegedly offered to provide the service.
The Attorney General's Ministry is pressing the extradition request on Belizean soil, on behalf of the US Government, and it has already submitted the extradition file to the Chief Magistrate.
The defense attorney representing Bennett indicated to the court that they were going to object to some of the contents of this file. The hearing to argue those objections was supposed to take place today. But, it ended up being a very brief discussion between the attorneys for both sides, after which the case was adjourned.
Bennett's attorney explained the reasons for the delay:
Anthony Sylvestre - Attorney for Andrew Bennett
"We were supposed to proceed this morning to have the oral arguments. On last occasion, we had indicated that we would be making certain objections to the extradition request. So, there were certain timelines that were set for the parties to submit written submissions. Our submissions, we did not comply with respect to the date set, so, that would have offset the government from being able to submit their submissions in time. And so, the matter was adjourned, and the oral arguments will now be presented on the 9th of January. So, the Government has been given an extended period until the 28th of December for them to file their written submissions, and then we return on the 9th of January for oral arguments."
Daniel Ortiz, reporter
"How confident are you of the objections and the arguments you're prepared to be argued next month."
Anthony Sylvestre
"We're very confident in respect to the objections that we're raised in our submissions. I will not go further in any detail, but we did put in some detailed research. So, we are confident in what we have filed, and submitted to the court."
As you heard, the case goes back to court on January 9th, and we'll have an update then.
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