Derek Achong

Chief Mag­is­trate Mar­cia Ay­ers-Cae­sar has been asked to de­cide whether Suri­namese busi­ness­man Ed­mund Quin­cy Muntslag is en­ti­tled to bail while he waits ex­tra­di­tion to the Unit­ed States for al­leged­ly con­spir­ing to traf­fic co­caine.Muntslag's at­tor­ney Kei­th Scot­land ap­plied for bail dur­ing a hear­ing of his ex­tra­di­tion case at the Port-of-Spain Eighth Mag­is­trates Court yes­ter­day.

Yes­ter­day's hear­ing was Muntslag's sec­ond since he was de­tained short­ly af­ter ar­riv­ing in Trinidad on Au­gust 29.He is ac­cused with Di­no De­lano Bouterse, the son of Suri­namese Pres­i­dent De­si Bouterse, for con­spir­a­cy to ex­port five ki­los of co­caine in­to the US be­tween 2011 and this year.Bouterse, who al­so faces an ad­di­tion­al charge for pos­ses­sion of a light an­ti-tank weapon, was ar­rest­ed in Pana­ma in Au­gust and hand­ed over to US au­thor­i­ties.

Scot­land said al­though an ex­tra­di­tion war­rant had been is­sued for his client, he was yet to re­ceive the par­tic­u­lars of the of­fence Muntslag was al­leged to have com­mit­ted.He al­so said his client on­ly un­der­stood ba­sic Eng­lish and need­ed a trans­la­tor for fu­ture hear­ings.Muntslag sat in the pris­on­ers' en­clo­sure with his hands clasped and lis­tened in­tent­ly. His moth­er, aunt and com­mon-law wife, Jes­si­ca, were seat­ed at the back of the court.

Scot­land ref­ered to the Ex­tra­di­tion (Com­mon­wealth and For­eign Ter­ri­to­ries) Act and the Bail Act, say­ing both pieces of leg­is­la­tion gave mag­is­trates the pow­er to grant bail to peo­ple await­ing ex­tra­di­tion.Scot­land said his client did not have a crim­i­nal record be­fore be­ing in­dict­ed on the drug-traf­fick­ing charges by the US and there was no ev­i­dence he was a flight risk."Our in­struc­tions are he is of good char­ac­ter and has no con­vic­tions or pend­ing mat­ters in Suri­name or else­where," he said.

Scot­land said Muntslag ar­rived in Trinidad legal­ly and was on­ly ar­rest­ed when he went to Trinci­ty Mall to shop for his five-year-old son."He didn't ar­rive on a boat in Ica­cos," Scot­land said.He said his client had no in­ten­tion of flee­ing Trinidad and sug­gest­ed if Ay­ers-Cae­sar was will­ing to grant him bail, she had the op­tion to place con­di­tions to en­sure he at­tend­ed fu­ture hear­ings.

In re­sponse at­tor­ney Jagdeo Singh, who is rep­re­sent­ing the US Gov­ern­ment's in­ter­est in the case, said bail could on­ly be grant­ed to those await­ing ex­tra­di­tion in spe­cial cir­cum­stances and asked Ay­ers-Cae­sar to con­sid­er the se­ri­ous­ness of the of­fence and that Muntslag had no ties to T&T."The court can draw the ir­re­sistible in­fer­ence that he pos­es a ma­jor flight risk," Singh said.He told Ay­ers-Cae­sar that in de­cid­ing on the bail is­sue, she al­so had to con­sid­er T&T's in­ter­na­tion­al ex­tra­di­tion oblig­a­tions.

"There is over­rid­ing pub­lic in­ter­est in the courts en­sur­ing T&T main­tains its com­mit­ments and oblig­a­tions to its in­ter­na­tion­al part­ners," Singh said.Ay­ers-Cae­sar said she need­ed time to con­sid­er the sub­mis­sions and ad­journed the case to Oc­to­ber 11 when she will give her de­ci­sion. The sub­stan­tive case will be heard on Oc­to­ber 28.There was a no­tice­able in­crease in po­lice pres­ence in and around the court for Muntslag's ap­pear­ance.

Groups of po­lice of­fi­cers were po­si­tioned at strate­gic lo­ca­tions in front of the court with sev­er­al of­fi­cers stand­ing at the ex­its of the court dur­ing the hear­ing.Muntslag ar­rived at the St Vin­cent Street, Port-of-Spain, cour­t­house short­ly af­ter 8 am in the back of a prison trans­port van, which was es­cort­ed by a marked po­lice car. Both were filled with heav­i­ly-armed po­lice in tac­ti­cal gear.Af­ter the case was ad­journed, Muntslag was tak­en from the court to the ve­hi­cle then re­turned to the Max­i­mum Se­cu­ri­ty Prison, Arou­ca.

Is­rael Khan, SC, and Ne­tram Kow­lessar al­so are rep­re­sent­ing the US Gov­ern­ment while Asha Watkins-Montserin al­so is rep­re­sent­ing Muntslag.