Lawyers representing Germany and those defending German-Canadian arms dealer Karlheinz Schreiber in his extradition trial argued about what constitutes reliable evidence in a court here Friday.

Schreiber, seated in the front row of an Ontario Superior Court room, was arrested here in August 1999 on a German extradition request for allegedly evading taxes as well as corruption, bribery and breach of trust charges.

He was later released on bail and has been fighting the charges stemming from his work for German defense contractors and aerospace firms.

The extradition trial, which got under way in June, dealt Friday with legal arguments over how evidence can be deemed reliable. Marie Henein, one of the Schreiber's lawyers, argued before Justice David Watt that reliability of evidence obtained outside of Canada in an extradition case must be approached "pragmatically" by an extradition judge.

Henein, presenting the defense's three volumes of evidence including a letter from former German chancellor Helmut Kohl, said different criteria apply to evidence gathered in Canada as defined by Canadian law.

Schreiber also is the alleged source of a million-mark (484,934 USD) political contribution to Germany's Christian Democrat Party, which effectively threw the Kohl's party into disarray and contributed to the end of the latter's political career.

Canadian government lawyer Thomas Lemon, arguing Germany's extradition request, disagreed, saying the reliability of evidence no matter where it is submitted must consider such things as bias of the declarer and circumstances surrounding the declaration among other things.

Justice Watt reserved judgement on the reliability issue until October 28, said another Schreiber lawyer, Ed Greenspan.

He added that the judge would then likely set a date to discuss the issue of what constitutes relevant evidence, which will start to be heard in December.

The hearing, which lasted more than three hours Friday, is part of the two-pronged Canadian extradition process. First an extradition judge must decide whether their is sufficient evidence to commit a person for extradition and then Canada's justice minister makes the final extradition determination.

The process can take years to make it through the courts.

With acknowledgement to Sapa.