وفي 24 كانون الثاني/يناير 2003، استمعت محكمة المقاطعة إلى 13 شاهداً لم يؤكد أي منهم رواية الضحية سوى والديه.
During the hearing, the author's defence attorney repeated his objection to the extradition and pointed out that it was neither normal nor common for a requesting State to submit further extradition requests concurrently to back up the first one.