IT TOOK just four minutes in the Half-Way Tree Court yesterday for Canadian motorcycle gang leader Wolodumyr (Walter) Stadnik, 49, to formally waive his rights to extradition proceedings and agree to return voluntarily to Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, where he is wanted on 13 murder charges.
The diminutive (5ft 4in) and slightly built Stadnik is said to head the feared Hells Angels Nomad chapter of the motorcycle gang in Ontario province.
Handcuffed behind his back and wearing a yellow-black-and white floral shirt, Stadnik, surrounded by police, was taken into the small No. 4 Courtroom near 11 o'clock.
Resident Magistrate Martin Gayle, provided by Paula Tyndale, Assistant Director of Public Prosecutions, with a summary of the allegations against Stadnik, asked him whether he was in fact volunteering to go back to Canada to face charges there and waiving the extradition proceedings against him, initiated by the Canadian Government.
Stadnik answered, "Yes", at the same time asking whether there was a lawyer in court for him.
RM: Do you want a lawyer?
Stadnik: No, I am fine.
After Mr. Gayle explained to him the significance of the documents he would have to sign to formally waive his rights to an extradition hearing, Stadnik agreed to the signing, adding, "I just want to be able to read them".
Mr. Gayle then asked Supt. Neville Salmon, Crime Officer for St. James, to read them to Stadnik whose handcuffs were then taken off for him to sign the papers.
But Stadnik, having duly signed, had just one more question. "Am I getting sent back right away?"
RM: "I don't know when you will be sent back..."
Stadnik was arrested on Saturday at the upscale Ritz-Carlton Hotel on the outskirts of Montego Bay, in an operation staged by Jamaican and Canadian police.
Within the last week, the Canadian police have been staging a major crackdown on outlaw motorcycle gangsters in their country and Stadnik is believed to have fled to Jamaica to avoid arrest.
The Magistrate then explained to him again, the meaning of the papers he had signed and ordered him remanded in custody, where he will remain pending the arrival of members of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police who are expected here this weekend.
Newspaper reports from Canada say the Hells Angels are one of the world's farthest-reaching criminal organisations, with ties to the Mafia, Chinese triads and Colom-bian drug syndicates.
They are said to be involved in crimes ranging from drug-trafficking (estimated at C$10 billion a year in Canada) and arms dealing, to extortion, prostitution and murder, and from undertaking international assassinations to selling the club drug ecstasy to teenagers at night clubs.
Stadnik, apart from being charged with 13 counts of first-degree murder, is wanted also on charges of attempted murder, gangsterism and conspiracy to commit murder in connection with a bike gang war in Quebec, Canada.
