Breakthrough in getting legal help for Phillip Smith - lawyer

Phillip Smith.

Captured fugitive Phillip John Smith's New Zealand lawyer says the pair have achieved a breakthrough getting legal help for the convicted killer in Brazil.

Previously, human rights barrister Dr Tony Ellis and Smith had trouble finding extradition or deportation experts from a list of lawyers New Zealand's embassy in Brazil provided.

"They were more into visas, just regular day-to-day stuff. Anyway, we finally found somebody experienced who's willing to do it. But it's just a matter of Mr Smith organising that payment in Brazil for the lawyer," Dr Ellis said today.

Dr Ellis understood the new lawyer, whom he declined to name, had offered to work with Smith for a "not unreasonable" fee.

Dr Ellis said Smith, also known as Phillip Traynor, made roughly $47,000 from defrauding Inland Revenue or StudyLink when in jail and "presumably" hadn't spent all of that. So he was thought to have enough money for the Brazilian lawyer, if he could access his savings.

"The money he did have was seized and is in the custody of the New Zealand embassy by order of the Brazilian court," Dr Ellis said.

If Smith chose not to return voluntarily, he'd be either deported or extradited. "Obviously the prosecutors seem to think deportation is the most likely, and from my experience in New Zealand it is...a lot easier to deport somebody than extradite them," Dr Ellis said.

He understood Smith could appeal the deportation, in which case the process could drag on for months.

"If the advice he got from his Brazilian lawyers is 'you can't win', then why spend your money on fighting it? If he's got a chance of winning, he's got no real incentive to come back here and spend the rest of his life in jail."

Dr Ellis said his most recent contact with Smith was an emailed letter. All contact with Smith had to go through third parties. Dr Ellis said Brazilian authorities forbade Smith from talking to anyone from outside jail other than Brazilian lawyers.

"I have a lengthy email...a handwritten email that somebody had scanned. He says he's well and being treated fine. I understand from other sources, I think from the embassy, that he is in a cell next to the prison inspector."

Dr Ellis said it was a fair guess Smith's nationality, notoriety, and especially paedophilia, would make him a target in jail and require his placement near the inspector.

The lawyer said when Smith returned to New Zealand, he'd consider representing him if he was paid. Yet there were legal aid technicalities that could complicate this.

Dr Ellis said he currently dealt with charges carrying sterner penalties than that of escaping custody -- which carried a maximum penalty of five years in jail and Smith was expected to face.

Smith was sentenced in 1996 to life imprisonment with a minimum non-parole period of 13 years. He was found guilty of murder, sexual offences, aggravated burglary of and kidnapping.