A Grand Court justice on Tuesday reserved judgment on a Venezuelan man fighting extradition to the US to face charges of smuggling millions of dollars worth of cocaine into the country.
Justice Marlene Carter said at the end of the marathon, seven-day hearing that it was “a very important matter” and that she would give her ruling as soon as possible.
Ben Cooper, KC, who appeared for Juan Carlos Gonzales Infante, earlier told the court his client had Alzheimer’s disease and vascular dementia, was unfit to stand trial and should not be sent to the United States.
He added his client would not get the treatment he needed in the US prison system and would also face discrimination.
But David Perry, KC, summing up on behalf of the governor and the US authorities, said Gonzales was accused of the very serious charges of bringing 100 kilograms of cocaine into the US, conspiracy to import the drug, possession with intent to supply, distribution and also money laundering for a drug cartel based in Venezuela and Colombia.
He accused Gonzales’s legal team of “expert shopping” to get opinions that backed up the appellant’s case after evidence from one expert had been rejected at an earlier court appearance.
Perry said that was not how appeals should be conducted and not how expert opinion should be handled.
He added on Tuesday that the magistrate who presided over the original extradition hearing had rejected the contention that Gonzales would die in prison in the US.
Perry highlighted that there was provision in US law, even where life sentences were imposed, for release on medical and humanitarian grounds.
He added it was “a curious state of affairs” that Carter was being asked to accept reports from expert witnesses that had been rejected in the lower court.
He said, “Our submission is that this is all highly unsatisfactory.”
Perry added that Gonzales had told a doctor that he did not want to go the US and “die like a dog in prison”.
Perry said, “All I am saying about these reports is that they raise an awful lot of questions that have not been answered in these proceedings.”
He argued that a trial was the place to decide fitness to plead and that the US was a friendly country with a reputable legal system.
Perry said that sending Gonzales to the US would not be “unjust or oppressive”.
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.
The group was intercepted by a joint operation involving police and customs officials.
The defendants were all cleared in court a year later. Gonzales, 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.
Perry highlighted that Gonzales had never given evidence during the proceedings, but had relied on expert evidence from doctors and experts on US prison conditions.
He added that there was no doubt – despite some confusion over Gonzales’s date of birth, which made him either 62 or 63 – that he was the man sought by the US.
Perry said that Gonzales had, before his Cayman arrest, told others that he was a regular visitor to the US, spending months at a time there.
He added that his absence from the US and departure from his normal behaviour after the charges were laid was further evidence he was the wanted man.
Perry said that Gonzales had never explained the “shift in his travel pattern and why he no longer visited the United States” after the charges were laid.
He added that what had been described as potential “discrimination” against the appellant in the US was the consequence of committing a crime in a foreign country.
Perry said there would be no prejudice against him because he was a Venezuelan, and any problems he would face would be the same as he would encounter if convicted of a crime in any other foreign country.
Cooper earlier said that there had been a “deterioration in the appellant’s brain function” over his time in custody in Cayman and he also suffered from depression that put him “at risk of self-harm”.
He added Gonzales had already been found to be “unable to remember crucial facts of this case”.
Cooper highlighted that the US prison system, as an expert witness had testifed, had “inadequate mental health provision” and the appellant was unlikely to get the treatment he needed behind bars.
“Prisoners are essentially left to fend for themselves with some medication,” he said.
Cooper told the court, “If the appellant is subjected to extradition … he would soon need to be housed in a health care facility”.
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