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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Crown Postpones Hearing Regarding Extradition

Vancouver, B.C, December 18, 1998—Federal Crown counsel, David Frankel, delayed an appeal against two Canadians committed for extradition because he has been invited to attend a justice seminar in China – a country that now executes its citizens for tax evasion.

Atif Rafay and Sebastian Burns were charged with murder in Washington State on July 31, 1995, and were arrested in Canada pending extradition.  They have been in custody since.

Their appeals against the extradition order were exhausted in 1997.   But the condition of their extradition order was that the US give Canada assurances that it would not seek the death penalty against them.  United States authorities asked Canada's Justice Minister to appeal that condition to the Supreme Court of Canada, Canada's highest court.

A hearing had been scheduled for January 28, 1999, but on Friday, December 18, Frankel asked the Court to postpone the hearing until March 22, 1999, so that he could attend the seminar for members of the Chinese Judiciary in China.

China recently implemented law that provides for the punishment of those convicted of tax evasion and tax fraud with executions.

Rafay and Burns are charged with three counts of first degree murder in Bellevue Washington.  They are committed for extradition on the sole basis of confessions which their lawyers insist were coerced by threat of death.

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