EXTRADITION OPPOSED.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20969, 4 September 1931, Page 8

EXTRADITION OPPOSED.

BANK CLERK'S CASE. CHARGE FROM COLOMBIA. ALLEGED THEFT OF £2OOO. BRITISH JUSTICE SOUGHT. [BY TELEGRArH.—rRESS ASSOCIATION.] WELLINGTON, Thursday. When an application for extradition in respect of Duncan Stewart Reid, who is alleged to have misappropriated £2OOO when a clerk at tho Barranquilla (Colombia) branch of the London and South American Bank, came before Mr. E. Page, S.M., in the Police Court to-day, Mr. Leicester, counsel for Reid, made no suggestion that the evidence had not disclosed an offence, but raised a technical objection that accused was entitled to be discharged owing to an order for extradition not having been made within 30 days of accused's arrest in Wellington. Mr. Leicester painted a' very bad picture of what would happen to accused if ho had to undergo punishment in Colombia, describing the conditions as appalling and frightful. He said he was not endeavouring to prevent extradition with a view tc. accused escaping punishment, but that he might escape it at Barranquilla. Accused was a British subject and was entitled to British justice. Mr. Pago adjourned the hearing to enable Mr. Macassey, Crown solicitor, to go into the point raised.

The Republic of Colombia, in the extreme north of South. America, has an area estimated at 440,846 square miles and lias ports upon both the Atlantic and Pacific Coasts. Barranquilla is a busy city of over 100,000 people on the left of the Magdalena River, about seven miles from the river mouth. The port, Puerto Colombia, is about 17 miles away.