Extradition request documents submitted to court as defence fails in another bid to stall US-indicted Mohameds’ hearing

The extradition proceedings against United States (US) indicated businessmen Nazar Mohamed and his son, Azruddin Mohamed, moved forward on Tuesday after the Georgetown Magistrates’ Courts determined that it was legally bound to proceed. Principal Magistrate Judy Latchman ruled that the committal hearing could not be paused in the absence of a formal stay from a superior court. The defence team told the court that it has lodged an appeal and continues to pursue multiple constitutional challenges however no formal document from the higher court was submitted preventing the Magistrate from moving forward and as such the hearing commenced on Tuesday.

The decision cleared the way for the prosecution to begin presenting evidence in support of a US extradition request.
The ruling followed hours of submissions from Senior Counsel Roysdale Forde and Attorneys-at-Law Siand Dhurjon and Damien Da Silva, who argued that allowing the committal process to advance while appeals and judicial review proceedings remain pending would expose the Mohameds to serious prejudice. Those arguments were rejected. Magistrate Latchman held that the acting Chief Justice had already declined to grant a stay and had expressly directed that the extradition proceedings continue. As a result, she said, the Magistrates’ Court had no discretion to halt the matter. With the court’s ruling delivered, the prosecution, led by King’s Counsel Terrence Williams, was instructed to begin calling witnesses. Outside the courtroom, Williams confirmed that the matter had now moved beyond preliminary arguments. “The extradition hearing has commenced,” he said.
Williams explained that the prosecution’s first witness was called to formally introduce the documentation underpinning the US’ extradition request, including the evidential material relied upon by American authorities. He indicated that the hearing is expected to resume on Thursday. Addressing questions about the formulation of charges, Williams clarified that extradition proceedings are not initiated by reference to local criminal offences. “It is not the practice in the Caribbean to list local offences at the commencement of the proceedings,” he said, noting that questions of double criminality are typically addressed later through legal submissions. Within minutes of the court ordering the first witness to take the stand, Senior Counsel Forde rose to object, contending that the proceedings were procedurally flawed because the defence had not been supplied with a schedule of corresponding local offences. “The requesting State (US) is under a duty to furnish the defendants with a schedule of the corresponding local offences upon which the committal enquiry is to proceed,” Forde told the court. He argued that without such a schedule, the Mohameds faced exposure to inadmissible evidence and the risk of the court determining whether a prima facie case exists without a lawful foundation. According to Forde, the obligation to ensure fairness did not rest solely with the requesting state but also with the court itself. Forde said that the case would be a “long arduous road ahead” and that objections would be raised throughout if procedural safeguards were not observed. He rejected the suggestion that Defence Attorneys could identify corresponding offences by combing through the evidential record. Attorney Damien Da Silva added that a Magistrate has no authority to commit individuals on the basis of foreign criminal charges alone.
At the Magistrate’s direction, Williams outlined the offences he said correspond locally, including conspiracy to commit a misdemeanor, conspiracy to commit a felony, computer-related fraud, obtaining by false pretence, inducing persons by false pretence, forging of public documents, false declarations, and money laundering. When Forde attempted to re-enter the debate, Magistrate Latchman cut him off. “Mr Forde, I have ruled, let’s not have a kangaroo court at this time.” She then directed that the witness be sworn. The prosecution’s first witness was Permanent Secretary (PS) in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Sharon Roopchand, who testified about the receipt and handling of the extradition request transmitted by the US. Roopchand told the court that the request arrived as a bundled set of documents bearing yellow and red ribbons, US State Department seals, and the signature of the US Secretary of State. She said she reviewed the materials to ensure they corresponded with the diplomatic note and identified them by a unique diplomatic note number before forwarding them to Home Affairs Minister Oneidge Walrond.

Object to documents
Defence Attorney Siand Dhurjon objected to the admission of the documents, arguing that they had not been properly authenticated. He said Roopchand had failed to affix initials, dates, or other identifiers to establish custody or authorship and that none of the documents disclosed to the defence bore any such markings.
“These documents could have come from anywhere, could have been created, innovated by anyone,” he argued. Dhurjon further contended that the documents amounted to inadmissible documentary hearsay and were not expressly exempted under either the Fugitive Offenders Act or the Evidence Act. Williams responded that the Permanent Secretary’s role was strictly administrative. “There is no requirement on her to read through the bundle of documents as evidence as to whether or not the condition of the Fugitive Offenders Act were met for a finding on whether there should be an extradition or not,” he said, describing her as “only a conduit” in the process. Prosecutor Hebert McKenzie added that “there is no inherent right” to cross-examine witnesses in extradition committal proceedings and that the statute expressly permits evidence to be placed before the court in written form. Following this statement, Magistrate Latchman overruled the objection, saying: “I’ll allow the evidence to remain on the record.”
She ruled that the defence’s concerns affected the weight of the evidence rather than its admissibility. She assigned court identifiers to the documents herself.
Running parallel to the committal hearing are constitutional challenges targeting amendments to the Fugitive Offenders Act, particularly Section 8(3B), which governs assurances required from requesting states, including protections against re-extradition to third countries.

The defence has argued that the diplomatic assurance provided by the US does not satisfy the requirements of Section 8(3B)(b) and that Sections 8(3B)(a), (b), and (c) are unconstitutional.

Rejected
In refusing a stay on Monday, acting Chief Justice Navindra Singh found that the assurance met the statutory threshold and ruled that Section 8(3B)(c) relates to extradition arrangements rather than the process itself. He also concluded that habeas corpus would remain available to the Mohameds should they be committed. The defence, however, maintains that the Chief Justice erred in law, including by finding that the constitutional challenges did not raise serious issues to be tried, concluding that no irreparable harm would result from continuing the committal proceedings, and characterising the risk of onward extradition as hypothetical. The defence has also launched judicial review proceedings challenging the Authority to Proceed issued by Home Affairs Minister Oneidge Walrond, asserting that the Minister is Azruddin Mohamed’s political rival and that the extradition proceedings are politically motivated due to his leadership of the opposition We Invest in Nationhood (WIN) party. Outside the court, Forde said: “We are challenging in that application the authority of the Minister to issue an order to proceed and we would be concomitantly be challenging the arrest and all of the related proceedings.” Williams rejected those claims, pointing again to the Chief Justice’s ruling. “The court ruled that in applying the law, there was no stay; in fact, the stay was refused and there was no further stay and the Chief Justice had ordered that the proceedings be continued,” he said. The extradition request was issued by US authorities seeking the surrender of the Mohameds to face charges filed in the Southern District of Florida. An 11-count grand jury indictment accuses them of wire fraud, mail fraud and money laundering in connection with alleged financial crimes involving gold exports. The proceedings are being conducted under Guyana’s Fugitive Offenders Act pursuant to an extradition treaty between Guyana and the US. Both Nazar Mohamed and Azruddin Mohamed remain on bail as the committal hearing continues.