Extradition

Dear Editor,
At the conclusion of the elections, I wrote a letter on September 14, 2025, reviewing the results of the elections and pointed out that Mr Azurddin Mohamed “is expected to enter our Parliament as the Leader of the Opposition, as a person sanctioned by the US Government accused of gross criminal activity and who has been charged in Guyana for further alleged criminal activity.
Therein lies a potential threat to the future stability of our country.” I was not wrong.
A United States Federal Grand Jury, we now know, has indicted both Mr Nazar Mohamed and his son Azurddin Mohamed on 11 counts, including wire fraud, gold smuggling and money laundering.
Our Attorney General and Minister of Legal Affairs Anil Nandlall has quite correctly and promptly observed that “it is obviously nonsensical for anyone to contend that these processes, or this process, are being motivated by some political agenda.”  In fact, as the Attorney General has emphasised, the charges upon which the Mohameds have been indicted date from eight years ago, well before the current PPP/C Government was elected into office.
Even before Azruddin Mohamed’s party, We Invest in Nationhood (WIN), received a majority opposition party vote, we can recall, as I mentioned in my letter, that US Ambassador Ms Nicole Theriot, in response to a question by a journalist, did say that Mohamed’s participation in any official political capacity would be “concerning” and “problematic” for the US Government.
According to our Attorney General, given the fact that Mohamed has now been indicted in the US, we can expect the Government of the United States to request his extradition from Guyana to the US to stand trial.
I find it particularly interesting, therefore, that a Dr Walter H Persaud has written a long letter in a section of the media on Friday in which he is at pains to say he “does not seek to defend or condemn any individual.
Its purpose is educational”, but then goes on to not merely state what he believes to be the facts in law about the matter of extradition but then resorts to expressing his personal point of view with regard to how our Government must handle the Mohameds case and issues a veiled warning that “the extradition of any citizen is not a simple administrative act; it is a test of the Republic’s legal and moral architecture”, whatever he means by that.
The Attorney General has already made it clear that the matter of extradition of any one of our citizens is not new to Guyana and that the legal process is clearly defined in Guyana’s Fugitive Offenders Act.
So, Dr Persaud, who subtly attempted to represent Mr Mohamed, may rest assured that our Government, as has always been its practice, will both respect and observe the rule of law.
In an earlier letter from me on the elections, published in another section of the media on August 26, 2025, I pointed out that the consequences of electing or even voting for a party led by a US-sanctioned person “should be plain to see and really need no elaboration”.
Those consequences are now coming to pass, and those who wasted their vote on the apparent attractions offered by Mr Mohamed will now discover their betrayal.

Yours sincerely,
Kit Nascimento