(Jamaica Observer) Dancehall act Busy Signal was yesterday extradited to the United States to face trial for jumping bail shortly before the start of his cocaine-trafficking trial a decade ago.
The artiste, whose real name is Glendale Goshia Gordon, left the island before noon, accompanied by United States Marshals who had arrived in the island on Monday.
Shantal Chin, the mother of one of Gordon’s children, told the Jamaica Observer that she is hoping that all will turn out well.
“Be positive,” was Chin’s message to the father of her 3-year-old daughter. “We miss him and we are praying. I know that everything will be okay.”
Gordon was flown to the United States just under a month after waiving his right to an extradition hearing in the Corporate Area Resident Magistrate’s Court where he was represented by Queen’s Counsel KD Knight and Charles ‘Advoket’ Ganga-Singh.
The artiste allegedly fled the United States in 2002 before the start of his trial on a cocaine charge in October of that year. Gordon had since travelled to other countries, but avoided the US.
He was arrested last month by members of the Fugitive Apprehension Team at the Norman Manley International Airport in Kingston as he disembarked a flight after being deported from the United Kingdom (UK).
The UK had refused entry to Gordon, who had been travelling under the name Reanno Devon Gordon on his way from another European country where he had been performing.
Gordon is being extradited on a provisional warrant for failure to appear for trial in the United States. Knight told the Observer that his client could not be tried in the United States on the drug charges because the warrant for his arrest relates to his failure to show for trial and not the drug charges that caused him to flee that country.
However, the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions said that the US could still try Gordon for the alleged drug offence, but that it would have to seek leave from the Jamaican Government in order to proceed.
