A High Court judge has granted a halt to the extradition of the former chief of the Financial Services Regulatory Commission, (FRSC) Leroy King, after his lawyer Friday said he had filed an appeal against a ruling of the Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court.
Justice Iain Morley, in an emergency sitting, said King, who is wanted in the United States on 11 fraud related charges stemming from the seven billion US dollar Ponzi scheme carried out by the disgraced American billionaire former financier and banker Allen Stanford, should be given the opportunity to appeal to the Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court to determine whether he could make a further appeal to the Privy Council.
The Director of Public Prosecution, Anthony Armstrong, had argued that an appeal by King had already been turned down and there is every likelihood that there would be no change in an appeal to the Privy Council, the island’s highest and final court.
King’s attorney, Dr. David Dorsett, had said Friday that he had filed the papers and that he was also calling on the Attorney General Steadroy Benjamin to be aware of the situation.
Last week, King lost his latest attempt to stop his extradition to the United States for fraud related charges in connection with the Stanford Pontiac Scheme. Stanford is serving a 110 year prison term in the United States.
The US had issued the warrant for King’s arrest in 2009 and one year later, he lost his battle to challenge the extradition. He has since filed numerous unsuccessful appeals.
In April last year, High Court judge Darshan Ramdhani dismissed King’s appeal, saying that he saw no reason why either King’s claim for constitutional relief or the application for leave should be allowed.
King, who was briefly detained on Friday pending his extradition, was dismissed as the chief financial regulatory advisor after US federal authorities announced criminal charges against him, Stanford and several executives of his financial group.
His attorney argued that his client had a 21-day window in which to file an appeal against the latest Appeal Court ruling, saying “the law is very clear, Section 15 (8) makes it very clear that once judicial review proceedings are pending, that there can be no extradition at all and judicial review proceedings are pending once the appeal period had not been exhausted, an appeal is pending”.
Antigua and Barbuda was at the heart of Stanford’s business empire stretching from the Caribbean to the United States, Latin America and Europe and Washington claimed that the Stanford International Bank Ltd, the island’s biggest bank, sold certificates of deposit that bilked thousands of investors out of billions of dollars.
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“Time longer than rope.” ~Granny
Old people does say, “what don’t happened in a million years happened in one day.”
That lawyer is probably the worst lawyer in the world what a man can loose cases tham….but it is like he keep giving them hope to get more money unbelievable….he will still have to go,if he had went 9 or 10 years ago he could have been coming out of prison by now
And the nominees for “worst lawyer award” are:
1. Chaku Waku Simister
2. Harold Love-lie
3. Justin “not ready” Simon
4. Ralph Francis
And the winner is….
Utter Nonsense! you think prison is easy huh? no one wants to be in Prison and how do you know it may not be a lifetime sentence and don’t talk about the amount of money he will have to pay for his defense. Always making some stupid comments as usual, the role of your lawyer is to defend you period. Only when and if you are in a situation like this you will appreciate the assistance from the folks defending you.
Why the heck Antiguan’s so love ugly of their own People? Why are you’ll rejoicing over this man’s fall? The amount of people the US hurt i could not care less if he was never extradited.. They need to pay Antigua our dam Money.. Oh how the Mighty will fall,that day is closer than anyone thinks.. It has already started-just look at their President.
You do the crime, be a man and do the time.
The government need to step in and and stop his extradition. We all benefit from Stanford and we must give the USA the middle finger. They owe us US 200 million dollars for destroying our gaming industry.
Its clear there are more positive people in Antigua than negative, based on JHA, and wadad comment. Years ago Antigua had more negative people, now they are the minority. The only reason why there is still a negative atmosphere in Antigua is because negative people usually have the biggest mouth, and positive people are usually humble and reserve.
I encourage positive people to speak out when you can, to drown out the annoying negativity thats keeping us back as a people.
I still cant see how people could actually wanna see this man get sent to the US. Its a classic example of a bully.
Antiguans are something else. An American woman come here with bullets in her bag she was arrested taken to court and sent to prison we make noise talking all kind of b***s*** about it a miskate and she was pardon and sent her merry way. An English man rape a woman run go home and now he is here living a life a luxary. Now we here rejocying for a born Antiguan to be sent to the big bad wolf (USA) before we try to portect our own. Only Anigua people………
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