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Extradition delayed of lawyer in case of 33 children smuggled from Haiti
posted on: Apr 29 2010 8:16 by Royston. Viewed 1792 times.
A court in the Dominican Republic suspended the hearing on Wednesday which was due to meet the request for extradition to the U.S. of a Dominican who served as legal advisor to ten Americans investigated for trying to smuggle 33 children out of Haiti after the earthquake of 12 January.
The extradition request is for Jorge Torres Puello, who appears in the "red line" of the International Police (Interpol), according to local sources.
The Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice (SCJ) suspended the hearing due to the delay in the arrival of the accused, who previously attended a hearing in the province of San Cristobal to get a writ of habeas corpus filed against his detention, according to media sources in the Supreme Court. The court will now set a new date to hear the application filed by the U.S. the authorities, said the source.
On arrival at the headquarters of the SCJ, Torres Puello called for fairness in making a decision about his case, which was based, he said, on false allegations.
Torres Puello was arrested on March 18 by members of the Special Investigations Department of the National Drugs Agency (DNCD) in the parking lot of a burger restaurant in the Dominican capital.
The defendant was hiding in the Dominican Republic after it was discovered that he used the country as a bridge to bring Haitian children to the United States after the Jan 12 earthquake.
He was also a fugitive from justice in El Salvador and Costa Rica, although the arrest warrant there was due to a request from the U.S., where authorities want to try him as an alleged leader of an illegal network taking children,including Haitian minors, to the U.S. from countries in Central America and the Caribbean.
His case gained notoriety after the arrest, in late January, of ten Americans belonging to the organization New Life Children's Refuge based in Idaho, USA.
The missionaries, who allegedly paid Torres Puello for legal advice, were arrested when they tried to enter Dominican territory on a bus with 33 children, who apparently wanted a better life away from the chaos in Haiti after the quake .
Nine of those arrested were released in recent weeks and now only the group leader, Laura Silsby, is still being detained and investigated as alleged organizer of the illegal transfer.
According to U.S. authorities, who ordered the arrest of Torres Puello in April 2003, as well as the courts of El Salvador and Costa Rica, the defendant "is an important part of a network of people smugglers, especially women and children from Central America and the Caribbean."
The accused, who also goes by the name Jorge Torres Orellana and George Simard, is also wanted by the Court of First Instance of San Juan Opico, El Salvador, where he is accused of sexual exploitation of minors and women.
His wife, Ana Josefa Ramrez Orellana, is imprisoned in that country on the same charges.
Torres Puello had also been detained some time ago in Miami (Florida), for attempting to use the social security card of a deceased person, said the DNCD.