A Venezuelan man remanded in custody in Cayman for about five years since he was cleared of money laundering charges linked to alleged gold smuggling has launched a bid to avoid extradition to the US.
The US authorities want Juan Carlos Gonzales Infante to face further charges involving drugs and money laundering.
But British barrister Ben Cooper, KC, told Justice Marlene Carter in Grand Court that an extradition treaty between the UK and US did not cover Cayman at the time.
“An extradition request must be made in accordance with the law,” he said.
“It is submitted the request cannot have been made quite in the manner prescribed by the law … whether this request is validly issued is a matter of Cayman law.”
He told Carter that there were “reasonable grounds, at least on the balance of probabilities … that the government certificate was unlawfully issued.”
“Unless the court is satisfied the request was validly issued … proceedings must be stayed as an abuse of process,” he said.
Gonzales, now in his 60s, was the co-pilot of a private plane. He was arrested with others in 2019 on money laundering allegations after landing in Cayman and was intercepted by a joint operation involving police and customs officials.
The defendants were all cleared in court a year later.
The appellant, however, was remanded in custody in connection with the US charges.
He was held in custody for about a year before the trial, which brought his total time behind bars in Cayman to about five years.
A magistrate later ruled the extradition request was lawful and referred the case to the governor for consideration under the Extradition Act 2003.
Martyn Roper, the governor at the time, made an order last March that Gonzales should be extradited to the US to stand trial for the alleged offences, said to have been committed in 2006 and 2007.
David Perry, KC, another British barrister, representing the governor and the US authorities, told the court on Tuesday, “The extradition scheme in this case is working as it should.
“There has been no abuse of process in this sense, or any sense, at all.”
Perry explained that the UK-US extradition treaty was “a contract between states” and was applied through statutory instruments.
He added, “The United States and the United Kingdom entered into a this contract between themselves and also agreed this treaty would apply to other jurisdictions, such as the Cayman Islands.”
He said fears that events in Cayman would count against the appellant in the US and lead to a life sentence were groundless.
Perry maintained, “There is only one issue here and that is whether the governor applied the statutory instrument, and he did.”
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