A new bail hearing has been scheduled for a Guelph pilot and his crew to determine if they’ll go back to jail while awaiting trial on allegations of cocaine smuggling in the Dominican Republic.
Eric Edmondson, CEO of Pivot Airlines, confirmed to GuelphToday the Aug. 26 bail revocation hearing for Rob Di Venanzo and others has once again been rescheduled – this time for the third week of September – after English translators didn't show up. The same thing happened with the first revocation hearing in July.
The crew has been detained since April 5, after flying a charter flight from Toronto to Punta Cana. While readying the plane for their return, they found suspicious bags in a hard-to-access part of the aircraft, with what was later revealed to be 200 kilograms of cocaine.
They notified Canadian and Dominican authorities, who then searched the aircraft before taking the five crew members and six passengers into custody. The crew then spent nine days in a small cell with 26 other inmates, with minimal access to food and water and numerous threats to their lives.
Though they were granted bail, prosecutors have been trying to have it revoked. If they go back to jail, they fear they won’t ever leave because of the death threats they’ve received.
“The biggest fear they have, is that it has widely been distributed in the Dominican Republic that they are informants. They’re whistleblowers,” Edmonson said.
According to Edmonson, the Dominican Republic has no legislative ability to protect whistleblowers. That means informants can be put in the same prison as the criminals they helped to detain.
Pivot Airlines hired a private firm to conduct its own investigation, and is “100 per cent confident” in the crew’s innocence. Given their findings, he says they are optimistic about the trial – their concerns are with what will happen between now and then.
While he said the adjournment has given them some relief because it means no final decision has been made, they’re worried “about what’s going to happen in the future."
“But it gives them comfort, at least, for the next four weeks.”
In the meantime, the crew will continue staying in secured housing provided by the airline.
There is no date set for the trial yet, but he said their legal system dictates they can be held for up to 12 months during this phase of the investigation. Since they were first detained on April 5, the prosecutor would have to press charges or release them by April 2023.
