The Judicial Committee of the United Kingdom Privy Council has ordered that Samuel ‘Ninety’ Knowles, a Bahamian, named as a drug kingpin by the United States government, be extradited to face trail in the US.

The July 24 ruling brings to an end one of the most complicated and longest-running drug extradition cases in the Caribbean. Knowles was extradited from Jamaica to his homeland in 2000 to face drug trafficking charges there.

The Judicial Committee, the highest court of appeal for the Bahamas, ruled that he stand trial on charges of conspiracy to import cocaine and marijuana with intent to distribute the drugs, in the Southern District of Florida where, on December 8, 2000, he and Frank Cartwright, and others were indicted by a federal grand jury.

The allegations were that between November 11, 1997 and December 2000, while Knowles was resident in Jamaica for a time, they imported the drugs from Jamaica through the Bahamas to South Florida. Cartwright was extradited to the US in April 2004.

Knowles and his alleged accomplices were arrested during a multi-jurisdictional co-operative investigation which resulted in the seizure of 3,000 lbs of cocaine, 879 lbs of marijuana and US$2.5 million.

Drug law enforcement agents from the United States, Canada, the Bahamas and Jamaica targeted Knowles and others in a complex regional investigation.

Knowles’ alleged drug trafficking activities here and documents prepared by the now-defunct Special Intelligence Group, headed by Roderick ‘Jimmy’ McGregor, which operated for a few months at 62 Lady Musgrave Road,

Kingston 6, from September 1999, purport to show linkages between international drug traffickers, some members of the Jamaica Constabulary, and private citizens, and led to the wiretapping scandal which was seen as a rouse to divert attention from the drug traffickers’ activities.