Small: They tried to entrap me

WANTED fugitive Lance Small is making another attempt to avoid his extradition to the United States to face firearm-related charges. Small, 69, a member of the Jamaat-Al-Musli-meen, filed an application for habeas corpus in the Port-of-Spain High Court Registry late yesterday in which he is asking a judge to release him on the grounds of oppression and the abuse of process of the judicial system. The application will be heard this morning before a Port-of-Spain High Court judge. In his application, Small, also known as Olive Enyahooma-El, stated that the conduct of ATF agent Steve Mc Kean and the other witnesses was improper and amounted to entrapment. On September 21, Senior Magistrate Joanne Connor, presiding in the Port-of-Spain Eighth Magistrates’ Court, ordered Small’s extradition to Fort Lauderdale to face the charges.

She advised him of his right to apply for a writ of habeas corpus within 15 days. Small filed the application on the 13th day. He will be represented by Pamela Elder SC who will be assisted by Ken Wright and Owen Hinds Jr. Small, a businessman of Vincent Brown Street in Gonzales, was arrested by local Interpol policemen on March 6 at the corner of Duke and Picadilly Streets, Port-of-Spain. It is alleged that Small conspired with others to possess 60 AK-47 guns, ten  MAC-10 machine guns with silencers during the period April 17, 2000 to May 30, 2001. He was charged jointly with Trinidadian Keith Andre Glaude who pleaded guilty at the Federal Court in Fort Lauderdale in 2002 and was jailed for two years. Glaude is now a witness for the prosecution against Small.

In his affidavit, Small stated that the offences for which he is wanted for in the United States are not extraditable offences. He argued that the committal order of the magistrate is unlawful by virtue of Section 12(4) of the 1985 Extradition (Commonwealth and Foreign Territories) Act. The wanted man stated that the magistrate erred in law in committing him for the offence of conspiracy to possess a firearm, which according to him, is not an extraditable offence. Small stated that the issue of a provisional warrant dated April 7 and the committal order of the magistrate on September 21, amount to oppression, a manipulation of the court process and an abuse of the process of the court. Small filed a constitutional motion in the High Court challenging the amendment to the Extradition Act, but this was dismissed by Madame Justice Mira Dean-Armorer on July 28.