John Kirk to challenge extradition on Tuesday

Press, 30 August 1985, Page 5

John Kirk to challenge extradition on Tuesday

NZPA staff correspondent Washington John Kirk’s challenge to his extradition from the United States will be heard in a Dallas court on Tuesday. A United States assistant attorney, Bill Alexander, said from Dallas yesterday that the hearing was set down for Tuesday morning in the District Court before Judge Robert Porter. On August 7, a Magistrate, Mr John Tolle, ordered the former member

of Parliament for Sydenham extradited to New Zealand to face charges under the Insolvency Act. Since then Mr Kirk’s lawyer, Michael Gibson, has filed a writ of habeus corpus charging that the magistrate made an error in law in determining that Mr Kirk was guilty of an extraditable offence.

The Justice Department, represented by either Mr Alexander or a lawyer, Tom Snow, in the Justice Department in Washington, will

argue the case against the writ at Tuesday’s hearing. Mr Gibson said that if Mr Kirk lost the case on Tuesday the last legal avenue to prevent extradition would be an appeal to the Federal Court of Appeal for the Texas area. “We will have 10 days after the hearing- to make that decision,” he said. Mr Kirk has now been in a Dallas jail for 10 weeks, but Mr Gibson said his client was still “in great spirits.”