End of the road for the Bank of

the South Pacific’s Mr Meier?

Canadian journalist ALAN MERRIDEW brings RIM readers up-to-date with the doings of American John Meier, who six years ago was making headlines throughout the Islands with his ill-starred, Tonga based Bank of the South Pacific.

John Meier, governor of the defunct Bank of the South Pacific, Nukualofa (PIM Sep. ’7B p 9), is stuck in some deep, smelly glue. The man who used a Tongan diplomatic passport to beat an American attempt in 1978 to extradite him from Sydney seems to be running short of luck.

Police escorts took Meier aboard a Canadian Pacific Air jet at Vancouver International Airport on December 20, 1983.

The Boeing 737 took off into a brilliantly clear night’s sub-zero air.

By midnight, John Herbert Meier, 50, had been booked into Los Angeles County jail on a murder charge. He is alleged to have hired a hit man to kill a business associate in 1974 after insisting that the businessman’s life be insured for $400,000.

The forced exit his second from Canada was particu larly bitter for Meier. He fought this extradition for more than two years, going so far as trying to sue Canada’s Justice Minister.

Meier seemed terrified of being locked up with bizarre sex perverts and mass murderers and common violent criminals.

His alleged crimes swindling, tax evasion, bail jumping were much more genteel than all that.

And because courts have said he took millions of dollars from the empire of the late, strange tycoon Howard Hughes, Meier must have felt he was a mark for hoodlums and other conmen.

He had been relatively safe in Canada. Officials had granted him landed immigrant or permanent resident status in 1972 as he fled American authorities. Then in 1977 Meier was granted Canadian citi zenship. His personal body guard was a former Royal Canadian Mounted Police authority on organised crime.

On the strength of his earlier days in Nevada, Meier even did consulting work for a combined police forces unit on the pos-

sible impact of gambling in British Columbia.

But while he was relatively safe, Meier was becoming in creasingly desperate. The past six or seven years have been a living nightmare for him and his family. When he wasn’t in American and Canadian pris ons, he was fighting in the courts and through some news papers to stay in Canada.

Meier has persistently claimed that the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency is persecut ing him. He tells reporters this is because of the relationship be tween Howard Hughes and former U.S. president Richard Nixon.

But neither he nor his lawyers have produced proof of Meier’s claims. Usually lost or buried in the sensations of Meier’s stories is his role in fleecing Hughes’ organisation and in jumping bail.

According to a U.S. federal judge, Meier diverted millions

of dollars from Hughes to him self when he had a trusted position for buying mining properties.

Meier arrived in Canada in 1972 after skipping a $lOO,OOO bail bond for alleged U.S. fede ral tax violations. These in volved $6.5 million in back taxes, penalties and interest for a single year.

After becoming a Canadian citizen on November 10, 1977, Meier flew almost immediately to Tonga via Tokyo and Syd ney. In July, 1978, he escaped extradition proceedings in Syd ney by merit of his Tongan diplomatic passport. The U.S.

Government wanted him in Salt Lake City, Utah, to face an obstruction of justice charge.

Unfortunately for Meier, in December, 1978, a Canadian judge issued an extradition order. He had been told Meier had forged documents in his home after receiving, in late 1976, some 4000 documents

that were supposedly the papers of the late Hughes, and recovered from Mexican authorities.

It was reported around that time that a key witness against Meier, one Robert Robertson, was in protective custody in the U.S. Robertson had testified that there had been threats of violence against him.

A Salt Lake City jury con victed the extradited Meier on July 31, 1979, of obstruction of justice. Sentenced to 30 months’ imprisonment, he in fact served 21 months, in U.S. and Canadian jails. He was transferred to Canada under a prisoner exchange treaty.

But less than a month after Meier’s release in January, 1981, a Los Angeles grand jury indicted him for the murder of Vancouver stock promoter Wayne Alfred Netter. Indicted with Meier were his former Vancouver laywer and fellow visitor to Tonga, Gordon A.

Hazlewood, and one William McCrory, of Los Angeles. A judge ruled that Hazlewood should not be extradited.

Someone, allegedly McCrory, stabbed Netter to death in his Beverly Hills Hilton hotel room late on November 29 or early November 30, 1974. Netter had defaulted on a $250,000 loan, allegedly arranged by Meier. Security for it was a $400,000 life insurance policy that Meier had allegedly insisted on.

The Vancouver extradition hearing was told that Meier knew of the murder 90 minutes before a chambermaid found Netter’s body.

A Canadian government lawyer who appeared for the state of California, P. W. Hal prin, said Meier received a phone call in Calgary, Alberta, at 12.30 p.m., Los Angeles time. Meier allegedly said, “I know, I know,” and turned to Robert Robertson, then a busi ness associate, and said Netter was dead.

But the Beverly Hills police department were not advised of

John Meier (second from right) with his wife, Jennie, and children Joanne, 16, and Jimmy, six, photographed in Sydney in 1978. Meier had just dodged extradition to the United States on the strength of his holding a Tongan diplomatic passport. Sydney Morning Herald photo.

the death until 2.06 p.m., Hal prin said.

Earlier this year, Los Angeles prosecutor Michael Brenner told the Vancouver Sun news paper that his case against Meier was circumstantial. But he would be able to prove that Meier loaned the money and was the one to profit by Netter’s death, Brenner said.

Brenner successfully argued against bail for Meier. He cited Meier’s previous bail-jumping, his use in Sydney of a Tongan diplomatic passport, and a war rant issued in Britain for Meier for allegedly using a forged passport.

At time of writing, a spokes man for Los Angeles District Attorney Robert H. Philibosian was unable to confirm to the writer the date when Meier’s preliminary hearing might be

held.

Alan Merridew.