Judge frees Small

MUSLIMEEN member Olive Enyah-ooma-El was ordered freed yesterday by High Court Judge Sebastien Ventour with instructions that he be paid compensation for his illegal detention. The judge however, granted a 24-hour stay of his ruling allowing the State that period of time to appeal the judgment. The judge also directed that if the appeal was not successfully conducted within the 24 hours granted for the stay, then Enyahooma-El must be released. The order expires at 1.40 pm today. Enyahooma-El also known as Olive Small and Lancelot Small, is wanted in the United States on charges of conspiracy to export 60 AK-47 rifles and ten guns from the US to Trinidad on May 30, 2001, and has been detained for the last 30 days on a provisional warrant pending extradition to face the charges.

His attorney, Pamela Elder, filed a motion for judicial review of the extradition order claiming  that at the time of the alleged gun-running incident, this charge was not on the schedule of indictable offences in Trinidad. She argued that the amendment to the schedule of extraditable offences was not retroactive and as such he could not now be extradited to face those charges. She noted that for the extradition order to stand, the crime that was committed must be on the schedule of extraditable offences at the time it was committed. However, State attorney SC Douglas Mendes argued that the amendment to the Schedule of extraditable offences does not subject Enyahooma-El to any new penalty that he was not already subjected to. He explained that what the amendment meant was that Eny-ahooma-El was being made available to face any sentence the court in the US would impose for the committed offence.

In his ruling, Justice Sebastien Ventour pointed out that the fact that Enyahooma-El is presently imprisoned calls for the court to move expeditiously to deal with this matter. He then stated that in his opinion Enyahooma-El is being detained illegally since the offence was not an extraditable one at the time it was committed. The judge then granted the order of certiorari quashing an order made by Chief Magistrate Sherman McNicolls granting a provisional warrant for Enyahooma-El.

In addition, he granted the order of certiorari quashing the authority given by the Attorney General for the Chief Magistrate to conduct extradition proceedings against Enyahooma-El. The States was also directed to pay cost to Enyahooma’s legal team fitting for senior and junior attorneys. Following the ruling, Mendes made an application for a stay of the judge’s ruling pending the outcome of an appeal. He noted that the ruling meant an end to all extradition proceedings against Enyahooma-El and his subsequent release from detention.