Global Affairs relents on info request

WOMAN FACES CHILD ABDUCTION CHARGE

A Calgary lawyer and his Lethbridge client no longer have to fight the federal government for access to information that disclose details surrounding the accused’s arrest while she was in Central America.

Lawyer Bill Wister had asked a judge to order Global Affairs Canada to disclose information about his client’s extradition from Belize last year. But before Judge Jerry LeGrandeur could rule on the application, Global Affairs, which had previously refused to hand over certain documents, finally consented.

“We’re very pleased that we have the disclosure,” Wister said Tuesday.

Wister said he had only recently received 500 pages of disclosure, and he was reviewing it to determine if he has grounds for a Charter application. Wister believes his client's rights under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms may have been breached when Canadian officials helped to remove her from Belize and return her to Lethbridge, where she once resided before fleeing the country with her young son. But without disclosure from the government, Wister hasn’t been able to determine if he has a Charter argument.

The Crown for the federal government admitted during previous court hearings that the government is in possession of documents relating to the matter, but it claimed the documents are not relevant to the accused’s defence to the charge of child abduction. The Crown also insisted the Charter doesn’t apply to Canadian officials abroad, so the application for disclosure based on a Charter argument should be dismissed.

On Jan. 6, 2014 the woman’s exhusband told police the accused, who can’t be identified under a courtordered publication ban, had taken their son and left the country. The following month she was charged with child abduction and a warrant was issued for her arrest.

Police tracked the woman and child to Mexico, Guatemala and various parts of Belize, and the mother was the subject of various international Interpol alerts.

Last July, Lethbridge police learned Belize authorities found the pair in the town of San Ignacio in the Cayo District and took them into custody. The mother was jailed and fined for failing to produce valid immigration documents, and the four-year-old boy was placed in the care of Belize Human Services.

In August the mother was deported to the U.S., where she was arrested after landing in Houston, Tex., then returned to Canada later that night. She was taken into custody by Lethbridge police officers at the Calgary International Airport and charged with child abduction, then released from custody Aug. 23 following a bail hearing in Lethbridge.

Wister said previously that Belize does not have an extradition treaty with Canada, and his client shouldn’t have been forced to leave the country. He said if the actions by the Canadian government in assisting Belize authorities breached his client’s Charter rights, he will seek a stay of proceedings, which would conclude the case without a conviction.

The matter returns to court later this month, by which time Wister believes he will have decided whether to make a Charter application.

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