Dutch oil tycoon John Deuss wants to live in Bermuda without the threat of a warrant hanging over his head, his British QC told the Supreme Court yesterday.

Lawyer Clare Montgomery said that Mr. Deuss - who agreed to be voluntarily extradited to the Netherlands last October on suspicion of deliberate, habitual laundering; handling stolen property; and being in charge of a criminal organisation - was now at liberty to return to the Island and "wishes to establish that he is lawfully entitled to be here".

Ms Montgomery argued during a civil hearing in front of Puisne Judge Norma Wade-Miller that a warrant issued by Magistrate Khamisi Tokunbo last October for Mr. Deuss, former chairman of Bermuda Commercial Bank, was unlawful.

The provisional warrant - issued after a request from Dutch authorities investigating a tax swindle known as carousel fraud - led to the 64-year-old multi-millionaire being arrested and held in custody here, before he agreed to accompany two Dutch policemen back to his home country.

Ms Montgomery, who once represented former Chilean ruler General Augusto Pinochet, said a warrant could only be issued for a fugitive criminal - i.e. a person accused of an extraditable offence - but that none of the three offences he was suspected of fell into that list.

"I'm saying that he was not accused of an extradition crime," she said. "He regards it as wrong for the magistrate to have issued the warrant."

She asked the judge to either quash the warrant, make a declaration as to its unlawfulness or set out her view on what offences should be deemed extraditable.

Ms Montgomery added that Mr. Deuss' decision to voluntarily return to Holland for questioning did not mean he agreed to the warrant or that the validity of its existence was now academic.

She said he was free to return to the Island and had already done so since his extradition. "He wishes not to be dragged back to the Netherlands but to go voluntarily as always was his intention," she said.

"These proceedings have been brought to vindicate Mr. Deuss' assertion that the magistrate should not have issued the warrant and he's free to live in Bermuda free from the risk of arrest."

Crown Counsel Cindy Clarke, on behalf of the Director of Public Prosecutions, said Mr. Tokunbo did have the power to issue the warrant and that Mr. Deuss, who has an office in Flatts and a home in Tucker's Town, acquiesced when he signed a waiver before travelling back to the Netherlands.

She argued that handling stolen goods was an extraditable crime. "Handling falls within the broader genus of larceny," she said.

Ms Clarke added that quashing the warrant could have no practical effect since the extradition had occurred and the matter was spent.

Mrs. Justice Wade-Miller told the court: "The nub of the matter is whether the magistrate had jurisdiction or not." She reserved her judgement to a later date.

The Functional Office of the Dutch Public Prosecution Service could not be contacted yesterday but said last month that Mr. Deuss - who denies any wrong-doing - remained a suspect in its investigation of a fraud which has robbed European governments of millions of dollars in tax and allegedly involved his Caribbean-based First Cura[LCcedilla-c]ao International Bank.

Jan Sj[LCumlaut-o]crona, Mr. Deuss' lawyer in the Netherlands, told the De Telegraaf newspaper that yesterday's hearing was a "pure juridical matter". "Mr. Deuss will not attend the court on Bermuda," he said. "It is much to do about nothing." He added that the "very large and widespread" investigation into carousel fraud was ongoing.