Bédard to learn fate at extradition hearing in Maryland
Last Updated: Monday, December 25, 2006 | 9:57 PM ET
The Canadian Press
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Canadian Olympic champion Myriam Bédard faces an extradition hearing Tuesday after spending Christmas weekend in a Maryland jail on charges of abducting her daughter.
It's the latest twist in a saga that began this fall and ended with Bédard's arrest late Friday by U.S. marshals after her ex-husband complained she violated a custody agreement by taking the 12-year-old away from Quebec City.
Bédard, a national figure after winning double gold in the biathlon at the 1994 Winter Olympics, officially became an international fugitive when Canadian authorities issued an arrest warrant on Dec. 8.
The athlete and her current husband, Nima Mazhari, made no secret of the fact they were going to the United States with the daughter in October.
The girl's biological father, Jean Paquet, soon complained to authorities that Bédard was breaking their custody agreement.
Father and daughter were reunited in Maryland late Saturday after she spent the day in the care of U.S. social services. Paquet was expected to drive her home on Sunday for the holidays.
Spokeswoman Catherine Gagnaire of the Foreign Affairs Department in Ottawa wouldn't provide details on Monday.
"They are together," Gagnaire said. "That's all I can tell you."
American authorities caught up with Bédard at about 10 p.m. Friday at an upscale hotel just off the busy highway linking Washington and Baltimore.
She will appear in a Baltimore court — possibly by video-link — from the Howard County detention centre in Jessup, Md., about 50 kilometres north of Washington.
U.S. marshals say the RCMP first contacted them for help finding Bédard on Dec. 15. Once it was determined she was in the United States, they obtained a provisional arrest warrant.
Mazhari speaks
Mazhari, interviewed by the Quebec network TVA in the parking lot of the hotel where Bédard was arrested, said they had been living in several different hotels in recent weeks.
He said he and Bédard turned themselves in to the FBI in Washington after they discovered Dec. 14 that she was being sought by police, but the bureau did nothing.
"They said 'We'll study it,'" Mazhari said.
Asked if the couple had authorization to leave Canada with the daughter, Mazhari said: "I know that he [Paquet] was aware. In any case, it took us two or three months to prepare all this."
He said the girl was treated well on their trip.
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