US won’t extradite American charged with murder to Tonga
HONOLULU — An American charged with murder in Tonga in connection with his wife’s death has been released from prison in Hawaii after the U.S. State Department refused to extradite him because of concerns he would not have received a fair trial.
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson exercised his discretion in denying the Kingdom of Tonga’s request to extradite Dean Jay Fletcher for trial in the South Pacific archipelago nation, according to a letter to U.S. prosecutors from the State Department.
A U.S. judge in Hawaii on Wednesday ordered Fletcher’s immediate release from the Honolulu Federal Detention Center, where he had been held for nearly a year.
Fletcher was indicted on murder and other charges in Tonga in the July 2016 death of his Canadian wife, Patricia Linne Kearney.