High Court to rule Jan 5 on Mohamed’s bid to block US extradition 

Chief Justice (acting) Navindra Singh on Tuesday indicated that he will deliver a ruling on the constitutional challenge to the Fugitive Offenders (Amendment) Act mounted by US-indicted businessmen Azruddin and Nazar Mohamed on Monday, January 5.
The Mohameds, who were sanctioned by the US, filed the application in the High Court in an attempt to block their extradition to the US to face money laundering, tax evasion, wire fraud and other charges before a Miami court.
Lawyers for the Mohameds, Attorneys-at-Law Siand Dhurjon, Damien Da Silva and Roysdale Forde, have argued that the provisions of the Fugitive Offenders (Amendment) Act, particularly the Authority to Proceed (ATP), which launched the extradition proceedings against the father and son duo, are unconstitutional, void and a nullity in law.
Home Affairs Minister Oneidge Walrond, Attorney General Anil Nandlall, and Magistrate Judy Latchman, who is presiding over the substantive extradition case, were named as respondents in the proceedings.
The US-indicted businessmen are seeking the quashing of the authority to proceed by writ of certiorari as well as declarations from the court that Ministers Walrond and Nandlall can have no role in the issuance of the authority to proceed. The Mohameds are also seeking orders of prohibition, barring the two Ministers from having any further role in their extradition, as well as a suspension of the extradition proceedings before Magistrate Latchman pending the outcome of the High Court proceedings.
The proceedings are scheduled to continue before Magistrate Latchman on January 6.
Meanwhile, this legal challenge mounted by the Mohameds was filed just days after Magistrate Latchman dismissed a constitutional application they had filed to have their extradition case referred to the High Court.
Latchman had ruled that the arguments presented by the Mohameds’ attorneys had already been settled by Guyana’s higher courts and did not warrant further consideration at the magistracy level. She described the defence’s application as both “frivolous and vexatious” and characterised it as “an abuse of the process” in her December 10 decision.
Speaking with reporters following the court proceedings on Tuesday, the attorney general described the challenge brought by the Mohameds as nothing more than a delaying tactic.
“In my view, no serious issues have been raised… We got to go through the arguments, though [but] I believe this is part and parcel of the expressed intent of one of the applications, Azruddin Mohamed, to delay this matter… I don’t think that they will succeed. Extradition law is quite settled; it’s a straightforward area of law now. There are complicated extradition cases. This is certainly not one of them,” Nandlall contended.
He further highlighted that the Fugitive Offenders (Amendment) Act provides mechanisms through which the magistrate’s ruling in extradition cases can be appealed.
“The law itself, that is to say, the Fugitive Offenders Act, which governs extradition in Guyana, has in it a very elaborate and comprehensive system by which a person who is aggrieved by a decision in the extradition proceedings can challenge that decision. So, after the magistrate rules, for example, there is a right to challenge the magistrate’s decision in the High Court, and then there’s a right to appeal that decision to the Court of Appeal, and every time the challenge is made, the law says that proceedings are stayed until those challenges are heard and determined,” he explained.
“The point that I’m making is that the extradition law itself, the Fugitive Offenders Act, has in it, built-in mechanism that provides a comprehensive regime of safeguards and due process for persons who are affected by extradition proceedings. And there is no need, therefore, for these collateral excursions and challenges to be filed in the High Court and elsewhere. They are intended, I think, to delay, and hopefully they will not succeed,” he added.
The extradition of Mohameds is being sought under the Guyana–United Kingdom extradition treaty, which continues to operate in Guyana pursuant to Section 4(1)(a) of the Fugitive Offenders Act, Cap. 10:04, as amended by Act No. 10 of 2024. The extradition request was formally submitted by the US Government on October 30, 2025.

Indicted by US grand jury
The father-son duo have been indicted by a grand jury in the US District Court for the Southern District of Florida on 11 criminal charges ranging from wire fraud and mail fraud to money laundering, primarily connected to the export of gold to the US by their company, Mohamed’s Enterprises.
If convicted, most charges carry a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison and fines of up to US$250,000, while the money laundering charge carries a fine of US$500,000 or the value of the laundered property.
The indictment follows sanctions imposed over a year ago by the US Government on the Mohameds, their businesses and the then Home Affairs Ministry Permanent Secretary (PS) Mae Thomas in relation to the same allegations.
The sanctions are related to the evasion of taxes on gold exports, with the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) noting that between 2019 and 2023, Mohamed’s Enterprise omitted more than 10,000 kilograms of gold from import and export declarations and avoided paying more than US$50 million in duty taxes to the Government of Guyana.