Urgent clarification on how Bermudian prosecutors should deal with extradition requests from foreign states is needed, the Court of Appeal heard.

Senior Crown counsel Paula Tyndale told an appeal hearing brought by multi-millionaire oil tycoon John Deuss that there appeared to be no case law regarding the particular issues involved in his case.

"We do urgently ask the court for guidance which this case gives us the opportunity for," she said. "With extradition, it's an odd and awkward situation at times."

Dutch businessman Mr. Deuss voluntarily agreed to be extradited to his homeland in October 2006 to be questioned by investigators about his alleged involvement in a sophisticated tax swindle known as carousel fraud.

A warrant issued by a magistrate here, after a request from the Dutch authorities, led to him being seized by detectives at the property where he normally houses the pilots who fly his private jets.

The 65-year-old businessman was held in the Netherlands for two months and later released but remains a suspect, according to prosecutors in his homeland. He denies any wrongdoing.

Mr. Deuss, who has a home in Tucker's Town and an office in Flatts, has already lost several legal attempts to have the warrant deemed unlawful. His lawyer Jai Pachai told The Royal Gazette yesterday that he wanted it overturned on a "point of principle".

Mr. Pachai claimed his client was unlawfully arrested here and unlawfully made subject to extradition and that it was "very important for his reputation" to have a court of law establish that the warrant should never have been issued.

Mr. Deuss' latest effort saw top British QC Clare Montgomery return to the Island to argue that Puisne Judge Norma Wade-Miller's decision in the Supreme Court last summer to uphold the warrant should be overturned.

At Monday's hearing, she told the three Court of Appeal judges that the crimes Mr. Deuss is accused of — deliberate, habitual laundering; handling stolen property; and being in charge of a criminal organisation — were not extraditable crimes in Bermuda.

Miss Montgomery said the magistrate should only have been concerned with whether there had been an offence under local law but the warrant referred to the crimes Mr. Deuss is accused of in the Netherlands.

The hearing heard lengthy and complicated legal arguments about which laws and treaties regarding extradition — some passed centuries ago — apply to British Overseas Territories.

The Government argued that Magistrates are entitled to look at a list of crimes listed in a British law from the 19th Century and then decide if that amounts to an offence here.

Ms Tyndale said the DPP gratefully sought the court's assistance in clarifying "how it is we are supposed to conduct our affairs with regard to extradition where the country is a foreign state".

The judges reserved their judgment for a later date.

ends