By Lloyd Williams,
Senior Associate Editor
THE UNEXPLAINED absence of a police witness at the Half-Way Tree Court yesterday led to the premature adjournment of the extradition hearing involving Pauline Pickersgill who is wanted in the United States on drug and other charges.
Pickersgill, 29, is the girlfriend of Dwight Mark Anthony Morant, 33, who was arrested in Brooklyn, New York on the night of April 12, having been freed on October 2, by cronies with blazing guns, from the Kingston Public Hospital where he had been taken under guard for treatment of an alleged eye injury. A soldier was shot and injured in the escape.
Morant, also known as Mark Demus and Anthony Rennick Black, is wanted in the Central District of California for allegedly masterminding a ring that used corrupt Federal Express employees to distribute throughout the United States 100 tons of marijuana (ganja) valued at more than US$140 million.
He and Pickersgill, who is wanted on charges of conspiracy to distribute marijuana, and who the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration says is in charge of money laundering for Morant's gang, had been in custody here since July 21, 2000, when they were arrested in a raid on a house at Bridgemount Park Avenue, Constant Spring, St. Andrew. Both were awaiting extradition hearing when Morant escaped.
Yesterday when Pickersgill's hearing came up before Resident Magistrate Martin Gayle in Court IV at Half-Way Tree, the three witnesses to be called by Paula Tyndale, Assistant Director of Public Prosecutions, showed up. Tyndale is making the extradition request on behalf of the United States Government.
However, as the first one took the stand the other two were instructed to stay out of the hearing outside the courtroom until it was their time to give evidence.
After the second had completed her evidence, the third, a sergeant of police, could not be located.
The Magistrate adjourned the court for several minutes while a police officer went in search of her, but he was without success. It was then agreed to adjourn the hearing to May 11.
The two witnesses who took the stand yesterday were Elinor Felix, Deputy Director of the Protocol and Consular Department, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and her assistant, Althea Rowe O'Sullivan, a Foreign Service Officer.
They both testified that they had received Diplomatic Notes and supporting authenticated documents from the United States Embassy, requesting the provisional arrest and extradition of both Pickersgill and Morant. They identified the documents in court and Mrs. Felix was cross-examined by attorney-at-law George Soutar, who is representing Pickersgill.
The tall, slim Miss Pickersgill, also known as Lisa Stephens and Arlene Pasley, wearing a white blouse and blue jeans and a black, green, gold and red headwrap, sat quietly serious-faced and handcuffed during the hearing.
