From: Nigel.Allen@bbs.oit.unc.edu (Nigel Allen)
Subject: Bahamian Authorities Make Arrest Pursuant to Extradition Request
Organization: NDA
Date: Thu, 8 Oct 1992 23:15:37 GMT

Here is a press release from the U.S. Department of Justice.

 Bahamian Authorities Make Arrest Pursuant to Extradition Request
 To: National Desk, Florida Correspondent
 Contact: U.S. Department of Justice, 202-514-2007

   JACKSONVILLE, Fla., Oct. 7   -- Robert Genzman, United States 
Attorney for the Middle District of Florida, announced today 
that Everette William Bannister of Nassau, Bahamas, was
arrested Tuesday evening, Oct. 6, 1992 by Bahamian authorities
pursuant to an extradition request lodged by the United States with
the Bahamian government.
   The charge against Bannister, conspiring to import cocaine into
the United States, is pending in the Jacksonville Division of the
Middle District of Florida, and is the source of the extradition
request for Bannister.  Bannister appeared before a magistrate in
Nassau today.  A bond of $100,000 was set and Bannister was required
to surrender his passport.  Bannister is being held in custody
pending the appearance of sureties for his bond
   Bannister is charged in the indictment, which was returned in
February 1989, along with members of the Medellin Cartel, including
Pablo Escobar and Jorge Ochoa.  Carlos Lehder, who was prosecuted in
the Middle District of Florida in 1987-1988 and is presently serving
a term of life imprisonment, is named as an unindicted
co-conspirator.  Bannister is alleged, along with other such as
Bahamian attorney Nigel Bowe, to have been a conduit for bribes to
Bahamian officials for Carlos Lehder, who was running a cocaine
smuggling operation on the Bahamian island of Norman's Cay.  The
conspiracy is alleged to have continued from 1974 until 1989, with
Bannister's conduct occurring in 1982.  The maximum penalty for the
offense is life imprisonment and a fine of $4 million.
   Recently, Bowe was extradited by the Bahamas to the Southern
District of Florida after years of litigation reaching as high as the
Privy Council in London concerning whether the applicable treaties
permitted extradition from the Bahamas on a conspiracy charge.  The
favorable resolution of these legal issues made it possible to pursue
the extradition of others, such as Bannister, on conspiracy charges.
Genzman said, "Persistence in the face of legal complications which
arise because of the international character of today's large drug
conspiracies is necessary in order to successfully prosecute figures
such as Everette Bannister and Carlos Lehder."
   Bannister was born on Sept. 15, 1927.  He has lived in Nassau,
Bahamas, since Bahamian independence was achieved in 1972.
   The prosecution is being handled by senior litigation counsel
Ernst D. Mueller, Assistant United States Attorney.
   An indictment is merely a formal charge that a defendant has
committed a violation of the federal criminal law and every defendant
is presumed innocent until, and unless, proven guilty.
 -30-

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