A Canadian man who was charged in relation to a drug-smuggling operation that crossed the border into Abbotsford in 2013 will not receive a judicial review of his extradition to the U.S.
Nathan Hall, 39, had requested the review after a court decision was made in June 2016 that he be prosecuted in the U.S. for drug-related offences.
But in a decision posted online Thursday (July 27), the three-judge appeals panel on June 16 of this year agreed that the original ruling should stand. Hall’s application for a judicial review was dismissed.
Hall, a Canadian citizen with an extensive criminal record in the Lower Mainland and Fraser Valley, was arrested in Abbotsford on April 3, 2013 following a day-long cross-border manhunt.
The incident began the previous day, when U.S. border agents spotted two men walking through a forested area along the U.S.-Canada border from Abbotsford to Sumas, Wash.
Both fled, and one of the men – alleged to be Hall – fired a gun at the agents. The other man, Jeffrey Robert Laviolette of Surrey, was apprehended at the scene.
Two backpacks that were dropped by the suspects as they ran were seized by U.S. authorities and found to contain 58.5 pounds of the drug ecstasy.
Hall was arrested early the next morning at an Abbotsford apartment, and has remained in Canada until now.
He was charged with drug trafficking and possession of a weapon for a dangerous purpose.
Laviolette was held in custody in the U.S. and was sentenced in December 2013 to 10 years in prison on charges of conspiracy to distribute ecstasy and possession of a firearm in furtherance of drug trafficking.
Two others, Ryan Lambert and Kali Henifin, both U.S. residents, were also charged in the case. They had made plans to pick up the drugs from the two men and transport them to San Francisco.
Both were sentenced in August 2014, each on a charge of conspiracy to distribute ecstasy. Lambert was handed a two-year jail term, while Henifin received a three-year sentence.
Hall had argued that nothing would be lost by prosecuting him in Canada, but the Ministry of Justice concluded that he should be surrendered to the U.S. because the drugs were recovered there, “the injurious effects of the drug trafficking would be felt there and the majority of evidence is located in the United States.”
