This morning, Belize City Businessman Rhett Fuller finally became a free man after spending fifteen years evading his extradition to the United States. Minister of Foreign Affairs, Wilfred Elrington, made his decision to release Fuller and not extradite him to the US where he is wanted for his alleged involvement in the murder of Larry Miller in 1990. Fuller began fighting his extradition order in 1998 and after more than 15 years of legal challenges, Fuller walk out of Elrington’s office this morning as a free man. Fuller fight for not have himself extradited is one of the longest seen in Belize. Fuller became a free man after Elrington weighed the pros and cons of having Fuller extradited to the US. A key factor that played into Fuller’s release, is his family, who Elrington says would have suffered is Fuller was sent to the US. Love News spoke to both Elrington and Fuller’s attorney who stuck by him side for many years, Eamon Courtenay.
EAMON COURTENAY
“As you know, the Extradition Treaty and the Extradition Act between Belize and the United States gives to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, the right to decide whether or not he is going to extradite someone who is requested by the United States. In this particular case, the American Government had requested the extradition of Mr. Fuller in 1998 and after many legal fights, the Minister finally decided today that he will not extradite Mr. Fuller. We had appeared before the Minister on December 20, 2013 and we made submissions to him to justify to him why he should not extradite Mr. Fuller and his decision today was to confirm that he agreed with our submissions and he will not extradite him.”
HON. WILFRED ELRINGTON
“When I considered the submissions that he made in relation to his wife and his children and his business and his experience in Belize since 1990, I found that the effects of sending him back to the US would have been very devastating to his children; he has three small children, the youngest of whom is autistic, she is ill and I don’t get the sense that there is any cure for that; she will always be challenged physically and mentally. It is going be very expensive to care for her; it is going to very time consuming to care for her and Belize doesn’t have the resources and the facilities to help a family who finds itself in that kind of problem. The mother has to be working eleven hours per day to have ends meet and even with that she is not coping because they are presently living with relatives; their property was closed upon, the business they had has seriously been reduced in terms of its capacity, its output, its work force – they had a work force in excess of seventy five and that has been significantly reduced to four.”
In his ten page report, Minister Elrington says that it would have been of catastrophic collateral damage that would have been done to Fuller’s three minor children. Fuller decline to give us comment but his attorney told us that Fuller truly became a happy man.
HON. WILFRED ELRINGTON
“I think that if he remains in Belize, gets back into Business, hopefully re-employs another seventy to eighty people, look after his children, care of them, provide the care that the girl needs, I thought that would be more in the interest of Belize and the Belizean people would have more appreciated that than to send him back, he vegetates and and his family goes to rot here. The legal system was so laxed that it allowed him to have a family some ten years after the offense was committed and it has really taken some twenty four years before we have brought this matter to a close. That is much too long; these matters should have been resolved within two, three, four years, five years the most. Had it been resolved within five years, there would not have been a family because he did not get married until after ten years after living in Belize and so it is because of the slow pace of the extradition process that he got a wife and he got those children, who we have an obligation to take care of. The law really and the principles are that the interest of the children have to take a very primary place; they would have suffered, there is no question that Belize would have been worst off if we have in fact, three or four citizens just struggling and join the band of poverty stricken people. I am hoping, based in his past experience that he will take care of his children but from what I saw and when I looked at the record it doesn’t appear that Mr. Fuller was of a criminal intent.”
EAMON COURTNEY
“Well, as you can imagine, he has lived with this for twenty four years and it was in 1998 that the Americans finally started the process. He is very happy, he is relieved to be reunited with his family and to win his freedom back, he was very emotional and I really hope that he is able to move on. My understanding is that that would be the end of it.”
Fuller was wanted by the US to stand trial for charges which include the first degree murder of Larry Miller on March 22, 1990 in Miami, Florida. Fuller had failed in all his legal challenges to the extradition request. Fuller then made an application to Elrington to have him exercise his discretion as the Minister of Foreign Affairs in his favor and refuse to extradite him. In his decision in September 20th, 2011, Elrington had refused to accede to Fuller’s application who in support of his application, Fuller had posited, inter alia, that extraditing him to the US would be oppressive. The decision, says Elrington, will be communicated to the US and the family of Larry Miller.
View the full article