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Man accused of shooting at border agents loses final bid to appeal extradition order

Nathan Hall was arrested in Abbotsford following cross-border manhunt in 2013
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Police blocked off roads in the area of Marion and Vye in April 2013 while assisting in the search for a suspect who fled from U.S. border agents. (File photo)

A Canadian man who was charged in relation to a drug-smuggling operation that crossed the border into Abbotsford in 2013 has lost a bid, through the nation’s highest court, to appeal his extradition order.

Nathan Hall now has no further recourse to avoid extradition to the U.S. to be prosecuted for drug-related offences.

The courts first ruled in June 2016 that Hall be extradited to the U.S. He then requested a judicial review of that decision, but the B.C. Court of Appeal turned that down in July of this year.

Hall then took the matter to the Supreme Court of Canada, which on Thursday dismissed his bid for an appeal of the original decision.

Hall, a Canadian citizen with an extensive criminal record in the Lower Mainland and Fraser Valley, was arrested in Abbotsford on April 3, 2013 following a day-long cross-border manhunt.

The incident began the previous day, when U.S. border agents spotted two men walking through a forested area along the U.S.-Canada border from Abbotsford to Sumas, Wash.

Both fled, and one of the men – alleged to be Hall – fired a gun at the agents. The other man, Jeffrey Robert Laviolette of Surrey, was apprehended at the scene.

Two backpacks that were dropped by the suspects as they ran were seized by U.S. authorities and found to contain 58.5 pounds of the drug ecstasy.

Hall was arrested early the next morning at an Abbotsford apartment, and has remained in Canada until now.

He was charged with drug trafficking and possession of a weapon for a dangerous purpose.

Laviolette was held in custody in the U.S. and was sentenced in December 2013 to 10 years in prison.

Two others, Ryan Lambert and Kali Henifin, both U.S. residents, were also charged in the case. They had made plans to pick up the drugs from the two men and transport them to San Francisco.

Both were sentenced in August 2014, Lambert to a two-year jail term and Henifin to three years.

Hall had argued that nothing would be lost by prosecuting him in Canada, but the B.C. Ministry of Justice concluded that he should be surrendered to the U.S. because the drugs were recovered there, “the injurious effects of the drug trafficking would be felt there and the majority of evidence is located in the United States.”

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Nathan Hall


Vikki Hopes

About the Author: Vikki Hopes

I have been a journalist for almost 40 years, and have been at the Abbotsford News since 1991.
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