District Court Judge Fiti Sunia denied the motion by US citizen Dean Fletcher to have the charges against him dismissed.
Fletcher was arrested here as he was trying to sail out of the territory on his yacht Sea Oak early last month.
He is being held without bail for entering without proper clearance and documentation proving that he was cleared from his last port of call.
Police in Tonga say Fletcher had escaped from prison in Vavau, Tonga the week before he was to stand trial for the murder of his wife.
The Tongan Government has been in discussions with the US State Department for Fletcher to be extradited to Tonga for his murder trial, but Tongan police departed yesterday without Fletcher who had been held without bail at the Territorial Correctional Facility.
Assistant Public Defender Mathoni McCormick made a motion to dismiss the government case against Fletcher arguing that the affidavit was inadequate.
He said when his client was arrested “there was no demand for Fletcher to produce his documentation.”
He charged that the affidavit was defective, and the complaint did not specify sufficient elements of the “crime” to justify a proper complaint.
Assistant Attorney General Gerard Murphy countered that if the basis for the motion to dismiss was because essential information was missing from the original affidavit, once the government turned over discovery, there would be sufficient information to back up the charges.
McCormick still argued that the statutory language in the affidavit was insufficient.
District Court Judge Fiti Sunia sternly told him, “don’t tell this court that a warrant signed by this court is inadequate.
He said the purpose of the complaint is to notify the defendant of his charge and this was satisfied.
The motion to dismiss was denied and a pre-trial for Fletcher is scheduled on November 22nd.
