EXTRADITION UPHELD FOR ACCUSED TRAFFICKER

Ranjit Singh Cheema Should Face 1998 Heroin Charges In California,
Appeal Court Rules

An accused international drug trafficker was taken into custody
Monday after the B.C. Court of Appeal ruled he should be extradited
to California on charges he was part of an international heroin ring
a decade ago.

Vancouver resident Ranjit Singh Cheema has launched a series of
unsuccessful legal battles to avoid being sent south since he was
charged by the U.S. in February 1998.

In the latest round, he had argued that a Pakistani named Mohammed
Yusuf Khan was acting illegally as an agent of the U.S. Drug
Enforcement Administration when he met with Cheema in Vancouver in
April 1997 to discuss their plan to import more than 200 kilograms of
heroin into North America.

But the appeal court judges agreed with an earlier B.C. Supreme Court
ruling that there was no abuse of process and that Khan was acting on
his own initiative when he entered Canada to meet with Cheema.

"There was no conduct by the DEA that would disentitle the United
States to judicial assistance in the extradition of the appellant,"
appeal court Justice Kenneth C. Mackenzie said in Monday's ruling.
"The DEA's involvement was essentially passive leading up to the
April 1997 Vancouver meeting."

Cheema could still seek leave to appeal to the Supreme Court of
Canada. Lawyer Richard Peck said he will discuss the possibility of
another appeal with Cheema and make a decision within a week.

Federal justice department media officer Lyse Cantin said Cheema
surrendered himself after the decision came down at the Vancouver Law
Courts. She said he could still apply for bail if an appeal is launched.

Cheema's arrest and latest legal loss was good news to the head of
B.C.'s Integrated Gang Task Force.

Supt. John Robin said Cheema has been well-known to police for years.

"Certainly from our perspective, this decision is good news," he
said. "We are continuing to follow this case with interest."

U.S. authorities have alleged that Cheema headed the drug ring's
Canadian arm and had worked for months to bring in $4 million worth
of heroin and 4,000 kilograms of hashish from Pakistan, to exchange
with a Colombian cartel for 800 kilograms of cocaine.

Khan "is the central character in this drama," the appeal court said
as it laid out details of the alleged plot that reads like a movie script.

Khan told police he was working with a retired Pakistani military man
named Major Mohamed Shafiq who had spoken to him about transporting
heroin to Vancouver for Cheema.

For months, there were clandestine meetings in Pakistan, Montreal,
Vancouver, Los Angeles and Singapore -- some of them monitored by
police -- that were all allegedly part of the plot.

During the April 1997 Vancouver meeting, "Cheema told Khan that he
had contacts in the Colombian drug trafficking organization operating
out of the L.A. area." Khan told police that he explained to Cheema
the heroin would have to arrive in L.A. and not B.C., for logistical reasons.

Throughout late December 1997 and January 1998, Khan talked to Cheema
by phone and met with several of Cheema's associates who remained in
the L.A. area to finalize the deal.

On Jan. 21, 1998, two of Cheema's alleged associates arrived at
Khan's hotel near L.A. and gave him a duffel bag containing almost $500,00 US.

The group of men went to the hotel parking lot, where DEA agents had
placed five boxes containing 104 kilograms of fake heroin and two of
the real stuff. The three B.C. men then drove off and were arrested
shortly afterward. They were convicted and sentenced to nine years.

Cheema was arrested by the RCMP in B.C. and began his 10-year battle
to avoid a U.S. trial.

The B.C. Court of Appeal also ruled Monday on two other alleged
associates of Cheema. The court dismissed a Crown appeal in the case
of Troy Lorenz, who had the charges against him thrown out. But it
upheld an appeal in the case of alleged accomplice, Saliendra
Narayan, ordering him "commited for extradition to the United States."

Cheema's name has arisen in high-profile Indo-Canadian gang cases for
more than a decade. He was identified as an alleged cocaine
trafficker in the 1995 trial of six men accused of the gangland
slayings of brothers Jim and Ron Dosanjh.

Cheema was wounded by a gunshot at a Richmond nightclub in 1995. He
was with his associate at the time, Robbie Kandola, who was gunned
down in June 2002 after a falling-out with Cheema. Cheema was with
his bodyguard, Mike Brar, when Brar was fatally shot outside a
Vancouver wedding reception in May 2000.