Drug Culture Given A Boost By Bahamas Supreme Court

The Bahamas Supreme Court sent an uplifting message to drug dealers in the Bahamas yesterday… crime pays!

The once respected judicial body has issued a ruling that calls into question the validity of the extradition treaty between The Bahamas and the United States.

In another decison that highlights possible corruption in the Bahamas legal system, Justice John Isaacs handed down a ruling in a drug case which legal experts say could have “far-reaching implications” for similar cases.

The ruling was in favour of seven allegedly hard-core drug dealers, caught red-handed with millions of dollars worth of drugs. The men are wanted for extradition by the US. The ruling led their legal team to re-apply for their release on the basis that “the extradition regime, having fallen, leaves no law for their detainment”. Why the men, who were caught in Bahamian waters with tons of cocaine, were not prosecuted and imprisoned in The Bahamas, under Bahamian law, is a mystery that speaks volume about the level of support drug dealers get in the corrupt island nation.

The Attorney General’s Office, headed by Alfred Sears, reportedly a protoge of notorious Nassau businessman Frank “the snake” Wilson, said that pending appeal, it has suspended any effect the judgement might have on the case in question “and on how others may apply it to other cases.”

The ruling upheld the defence team’s argument that one provision of the Extradition Treaty never received Parliamentary approval.

The seven men were arrested during a multi-national initiative for their alleged roles in a drug cartel, reportedly headed by Melvin Walter Maycock and Pedro Vincent Smith.

The defence’s legal team, a gaggle of lawyers whose ethics, in this website’s opinion, have proven to be highly questionable, included Maurice Glinton, Henry Bostwick, Godfrey Pinder, Desmond Banister and Jerome Roberts. These lawyers spent months in court arguing that the Extradition Treaty, signed on March 9, 1990 by then Minister of Foreign Affairs, Charles Carter, was not enforceable.

The team argued that under Article 18 of the Treaty, the Bahamas government must pay for the expenses incurred in the extradition process; yet the House of Assembly never approved the fiscal responsibility. For that, they let seven notorious alleged drug dealers out of jail.

Lawyers representing the US and Bahamas government were led by the seemingly incompetent Francis Cumberbatch.

US officials declined to comment on the ruling. Insiders say the US government, under “get tough” President George Bush will send a strong message back to the Bahamas regarding the shenanigans being played out in the corrupt and dysfunctional Bahamian courts.