Belize authorities testify in child abduction case

Defence files Charter arguments

Asouthern Alberta lawyer will finally get to present Charter arguments in a child abduction case being heard in a Lethbridge courtroom. Bill Wister has been waiting for months to question authorities from Belize in relation to the case, in which his client is accused of taking her son and fleeing to the Central American country more than four years ago.

Friday in Lethbridge provincial court, three Belizean authorities testified during a day-long voir dire — a trial within a trial — to hear evidence and determine whether the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms applies in the case.

Wister has filed a Charter notice alleging federal government officials had no right to have his client arrested and extradited from Belize in 2017, even though she was wanted on a Canada-wide warrant for child abduction. Wister maintains Canadian officials denied the woman fundamental justice under Article 9 of the Declaration of Human Rights, which states “no one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile.”

The officer who arrested the woman — she can’t be named under a publication ban to protect the identity of her young son — testified Friday by closed-circuit TV from Belize, and told court he had been assigned Nov. 1, 2015 to work on the case and locate a “wanted fugitive.” And while he received a tip only two weeks later revealing the woman’s location, he didn’t arrest her until July 19, 2017.

The officer, Holly Vasquez of the Belize Police Department, said he and several armed officers found the accused in a small home while her son played in a nearby park. He said he received “intelligence” that a firearm might be in the residence, but police never found one. And even though Vasquez had a Canadian arrest warrant, he said he arrested the accused because she was unable to produce her passport.

Vasquez admitted he knew the warrant was not valid in Belize and could not be used to arrest the woman unless she was found in Canada. Wister suggested the officer didn’t even show the accused the arrest warrant, and didn’t have authority to arrest her.

Vasquez said he only “detained” the woman and she was arrested later. But earlier in his testimony he said he arrested her for failing to show him her passport, then he cautioned her and read her rights. He testified he also told her, “I have an international warrant for her arrest.”

The Belizean departments of human services and immigration, as well as the Canadian Consulate in Belize, were contacted, and the accused was convicted July 20, 2017 of failing to produce the proper documents. She was fined $1,000 and her removal from Belize was ordered four days later, after she paid the fine. She was finally removed Aug. 9 and flown to Calgary, via Houston, Texas.

Vernon Charles Leslie, who worked for Belizean Immigration Services at the time, testified the woman’s family bought her an airline ticket to Canada, and he and police officers escorted her to the airport. Although Leslie insisted she was ordered her to be returned to her country of origin, he admitted during Wister’s questioning that the actual order only specified her removal from Belize.

Wister suggested his client was not ordered to return to Canada, and she told authorities she didn’t want to go to there. He also pointed out Special Prosecutions in Canada, not the woman’s family, bought her the airline ticket.

The accused was deported to the U.S., where she was arrested after landing in Houston, then flown to Canada. 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.

The matter will return to court on Dec. 14.