from norml: http://www.mapinc.org/norml/v06/n1030/a03.htm?134
EXTRADITION REFUSED IN BEDFORD POT CASE
by Jan Ravensbergen, The Gazette, (Source:Montreal Gazette)
Regional News
CN QU: Extradition Refused In Bedford Pot Case
CN QU: Editorial: Useful Tool In The War On Drugs
CN QU: Looking In On Teens
CN QU: Ville Marie Residents Upset By Influx Of Drug Dealers
CN QU: Editorial: Fuzzy Thinking On Marijuana
CN QU: Mother-Daughter Team Held In Custody
CN QU: Leaders In Loudness
CN QU: Ex-Officers Arrested
CN QU: Kanesatake Woman Ran Drug Ring, Police Say
CN QU: Column: Ban Williams
04 Aug 2006
Quebec
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11 Residents Wanted in U.S. After Bust
A Quebec judge has shut the door on a U.S. request to extradite 11 residents of the Bedford area of the Eastern Townships to face charges after a massive marijuana bust there last year.
"We're evaluating the decision, still, and are going to explore our options once we fully do that," Tristram Coffin, assistant U.S. attorney for the district of Vermont, said yesterday from his Burlington office. "I can't comment beyond that."
The U.S. Department of Justice wants the group - which includes Werner Kyling, alleged to be a kingpin of a pot ring that racked up gross annual profits of $30 million - to stand trial in Vermont. Each of the 11 would face U.S. federal charges of conspiracy to traffic and import marijuana between 1991 and 2005.
Convictions could net individual prison sentences of 20 years or more in the United States, said a lawyer for one of the 11.
"There is a total lack of evidence to establish the participation of any of the respondents in the general conspiracies alleged," Quebec Superior Court Judge James Brunton ruled Wednesday, after seven days of extradition hearings in June.
The Townships bust, in June 2005, involved more than 250 officers from the Surete du Quebec, the RCMP and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.
Authorities arrested 40 people and confiscated 10,000 pot plants, hashish, 64 firearms, $368,000 in cash and a helicopter investigators alleged Kyling used to survey fields of pot plants.
Although Kyling, 63, and the 10 others have been allowed to walk for now, Brunton left little doubt they face further legal difficulties: "I suspect this is but a momentary reprieve for the respondents," he said in his ruling.
Police "could literally arrest the respondents on the steps of the courthouse as they leave today and charge them ... before Canadian courts," he added.
Regarding Kyling, "the proof reveals he has been involved, on and off since 1997, in the production and traffic of marijuana."
Brunton said his ruling "should not be the source of rejoicing for the respondents or dismay for the law-abiding residents of the Bedford-St. Armand region," which straddles the Vermont border and where Kyling and associates have cut a wide swath for many years.
Pierre Labelle, the crown prosecutor who argued the case, is on vacation and won't be available for comment until next week.
Frank Pappas, a lawyer for Jimmy Kimmell, one of the 11 respondents, said extradition requests from U.S. authorities are granted "99 per cent of the time" by Canadian courts. With 11 such requests turned down in a single shot, he said, "this is a first in Canada."
As for what happens now, crown lawyer Andreanne Cote, who assisted Labelle in the case, echoed Coffin: "We will evaluate the next step next week."
The other nine respondents are Paul Anderson, Donald Blinn, Brian Bordo, Martin Castilloux, Martin Clohosy, Gilles Couture, Jerry Couture, Darin Stewart and Andy Sylvester.
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