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Lawyers for a Calgary man arrested on extradition warrants connected to accused Canadian drug kingpin Ryan Wedding will be applying for a review of a decision denying him bail.
Allistair Chapman, 33, and nine others were arrested last year in an FBI investigation into a billion-dollar international drug trafficking organization allegedly run by Wedding in Mexico, Colombia, Canada and the United States.
U.S. prosecutors allege Chapman helped arrange the killing of an FBI informant by providing the man’s photo to a co-accused and paying for it to be posted online.
The informant was later shot dead at a restaurant in Colombia.
Justice Paul Jeffrey, who denied Chapman bail last month, says U.S. prosecutors have a strong case against him.
And Jeffrey says releasing him on bail would undermine public confidence in the justice system.
“While he did not pull the trigger, he knew the purpose of the work he was assigned was the murder,” the judge said in a written decision Friday.
But one of Chapman’s lawyers, Chad Haggerty, indicated in court Friday the defence intends to ask for a review of the decision. A date for a bail review is expected to be set March 20.
Canadian Ryan Wedding, 44, was arrested in Mexico City and is now in custody in the U.S. (Federal Bureau of Investigation)
Outside court, Haggerty said the original authority to proceed requesting Chapman’s extradition had been amended to just conspiracy to commit murder.
He said that doesn’t mean the U.S. justice department won’t still proceed with prosecuting Chapman on other organized crime offences.
Wedding was arrested earlier this year in Mexico and transferred to California. He had been on the FBI’s most-wanted list.