Bradley Remanded Again In Colombo

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29339, 19 October 1960, Page 17

Bradley Remanded Again In Colombo

COLOMBO, October 18. Stephen Leslie Bradley was further remanded in custody today until October 24 when he appeared in the Colombo Magistrate’s Court.

Bradley, a 34-year-old naturalised Australian and father of three, was taken by Colombo harbour police from the liner Himalaya when it docked here on October 10 from Fremantle on its way to London. He appeared in Court the next day and, held on a provisional warrant issued under the Fugitive Offenders Act of 1881, he was then remanded in custody until today. When the Court opened, Mr D. S. Jayawickrema, Q.C., for Bradley, opposed the prosecution request for a remand. He opposed the application on the grounds that it had not been proved that Bradley was a fugitive. The Court adjourned for a short period for defence counsel to examine evidence laid before the first hearing at which Bradley was remanded until today. Counsel for the prosecution said that in this case not all depositions had been taken from the witnesses expected to be called during the hearing now going on in Sydney. He said that a cable had been received by the Australian High Commissioner, saying that so far 19 witnesses had been heard and the rest were expected to be heard today. “It is hoped that evidence for the Crown will then be completed,” he said. “It is evidence largely of a circumstantial nature.”

Answering the Magistrate, the prosecutor said that he expected to have depositions and the original warrant in Ceylon during the next seven days. Mr Jayawickrema rose at this stage and said: “I oppose this application, sir.” “Why?” asked the Magistrate. Clasping a volume of “The Law on Extradition,” Mr Jayawickrema said: “I am not aware of the actual circumstances in which Bradley was taken off the Himalaya. but my instructions are that it was done with much illegality

“I also submit that a man should be held under the provision of the Fugitive Offenders Act. In this case he was taken from the ship with a warrant I further submit that the late; provisional warrant could not have been issued and that it was issued was wrong in law.” Mr Jayawickrema then went into the question of whether Bradley was in fact a fugitive and could be held under the act "Only a person accused of having committed an offence in any of Her Majesty’s Dominions and found in another of those Dominions can be arrested and returned whence be came as a fugitive.” he said. Mr Jayawickrema submitted that there were two necessary provisions for a man to be held under this particular act, first passed in 1881. "First, be must have been accused of an offence and secondly he must be a fugitive,” he said. "Bradley is not a fugitive within the meaning of the Fugitive Offenders Act,” he said.

The Magistrate then said: "You claim that I must be shown proof that Bradley was a fugitive, but I think you are talking of an ideal situation. The mere physical act of leaving jurisdiction coupled with such evidence as is practicable of complicity of that person in a crime is in my opinion sufficient for the issue of a provisional warrrant.

“Evidence was given me by a detective from Sydney of the issue in Sydney of a warrant for the arrest of Bradley.”