The Tribune

By TANEKA THOMPSON

Tribune News Editor

tmthompson@tribunemedia.net

ALLEGED drug smuggler Austin Knowles was extradited to the United States Friday afternoon to face charges there, ending a more than decade-long court battle fighting against removal from this country.

He arrived in Florida after 5pm Friday on a Drug Enforcement Agency airplane, a well-placed source told this newspaper. He and five other Bahamians had been indicted on several drug related charges by a Florida court on December 12, 2003.

Last October, the Court of Appeal dismissed the legal challenges of the five men, including Knowles, who were fighting extradition.

At the time, Austin Knowles, Nathaniel Knowles, Edison Watson, Ian Bethel and Sean Bruey aka Shawn Saunders, were committed to prison to await their extradition after then-Court of Appeal 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.

When contacted Saturday, his attorney Damian Gomez, QC, said Knowles’ extradition happened after his client withdrew his application from the London-based Privy Council to appeal the lower court’s decision. He is expected to be arraigned on drug charges in the US this week, Mr Gomez said.

The other men still have applications before the London court, Mr Gomez told this newspaper.

“He is the only one who withdrew his application before the Privy Council,” Mr Gomez said.

When asked why his client withdrew his intent to appeal, Mr Gomez said, “It’s up to him. They all had applications and he chose to discontinue (his) and that information was communicated to the registrar of the Privy Council and to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.”

The five men had previously been committed to prison to await extradition to the US in November 13, 2003 by former Magistrate Carolita Bethel.

They were accused of alleged drug trafficking and conspiring to import cocaine into the US.

On November 25, 2003, an application on behalf of each appellant for a writ of habeas corpus was filed in the Supreme Court seeking their release from custody.

The men were released on bail in 2005, prior to their committal to prison last year.

In May 2015, the Nassau Guardian revealed that files relating to the men’s extradition case had gone “missing” from the Office of the Attorney General.

That same month, lawyers for the five men appeared before Senior Justice Stephen Isaacs for a status hearing into their previous challenge to a magistrate’s approval of the US’ extradition request for them.