Security cameras captured images of Phillip John Smith at the airport during his escape from the country. Photo / Supplied
Security cameras captured images of Phillip John Smith at the airport during his escape from the country. Photo / Supplied
Notorious murderer Phillip John Smith says his deportation to New Zealand after escaping prison and fleeing to Brazil was "tantamount to abduction".
The murderer and child sex offender's case is being heard in the Court of Appeal today, with Smith participating over audio visual link.
He is appealing his conviction for escaping custody, arguing New Zealand authorities illegally extradited him from Brazil.
Smith was jailed in 1995 for 13 years for murdering the father of a 12-year-old Wellington boy he had been sexually abusing. At the time he was on bail facing child molestation charges.
The night of the murder he crept into the victim's bedroom and stood over him with a knife. The boy's screams woke his parents and his father ran to his rescue. Smith stabbed the man multiple times in front of his wife.
The boy managed to escape and ran to the police station, but Smith held the boy's mother and brother hostage at gunpoint until he eventually gave up.
Smith's case hit international headlines in 2014 when he walked out of Spring Hill Prison on a 74-hour temporary release and boarded a flight to Chile.
He made his way to a backpackers in Rio De Janeiro, where a fellow guest recognised him from news reports and tipped off the Brazilian police.
Phillip John Smith stands in handcuffs outside the Cidade Maravilhosa Hostel after his arrest by federal police in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Photo / Supplied
He was arrested and eventually deported on immigration grounds back to New Zealand.
He was later sentenced to two years and nine months in prison for the audacious escape, and for fraudulently obtaining a passport.
In court today, Smith referred to the deportation as a "disguised extradition".
"I allege that the New Zealand authorities procured my deportation from Brazil with the ulterior motive of returning me to New Zealand to face trial," he said.
There was a "deliberate avoidance of the extradition process", but authorities went ahead despite having knowledge it was unlawful, he said.
"The New Zealand authorities controlled the final destination of the deportation process, obtained an emergency travel document for that purpose in breach of the Passports Act 1992, detained me on Brazilian soil without jurisdiction unlawfully and moved me from Brazilian soil to New Zealand. It was, in my respectful submission, tantamount to abduction."
Smith also argued Brazilian law did not recognise escaping custody as an offence because they "attach such a high value to freedom".
"They consider it would be only natural for a prisoner to escape to obtain his freedom," he said.
Phillip John Smith was jailed for murder and child sex offences in 1996. Photo / File
But the panel of judges said there was no evidence before them from a recognised expert that there was any truth in his statement.
Smith also said there was no life sentence under Brazilian law, only a maximum sentence of 30 years.
"The deportation process cannot be used if it represents an extradition that is not admissible under Brazilian law."
Therefore he legally could not have been deported unless New Zealand authorities agreed to quash his life sentence and replace it with a finite sentence of no more than 30 years, he said.
Crown lawyer Fergus Sinclair said the Court of Appeal did not need to concern itself with the deportation decision, because it was made outside their jurisdiction.
He said New Zealand did not influence the decision to deport, made by Brazil's Supreme Federal Court.
"The distinctive feature of this case is that the deportation took case in obedience to an order of the federal criminal court," he said.
"For our police it was a matter of awaiting the answer a complex and unfamiliar legal system was going to deliver."
It was not "improper to be happy with that result".
"What the domestic court supervises is the conduct of representatives from this jurisdiction. If there's no misconduct in NZ it doesn't matter if there's been an error in law on the other side of the fence."
