Extradition requests
Lawyer confirms gathering legal eagles
Stabroek News
May 23, 2004
A local lawyer has been retained to organise a legal team by persons likely to be named in a United States government extradition request related to drug-trafficking and money-laundering charges.
The lawyer who asked not be identified confirmed to Stabroek News that he had been asked to organise a team, for which lawyers from the wider Caribbean and the United States were being approached.
The move to the lawyer, by likely subjects of the extradition request, follows a visit here by representatives of the US Drug Enforcement Agency and the New York District Attorney's Office earlier this month to review the country's extradition procedures with Attorney General Doodnauth Singh.
At the meeting with Singh the US officials did not disclose the names of the persons whose extradition would be requested as they said that the indictments were sealed, but they did indicate that they were going to seek the extradition of some 16 persons.
Subsequent to that visit Cabinet Secretary Dr Roger Luncheon also confirmed at his weekly press briefing that the request for the extradition of a number of persons had been made and was being dealt with by the appropriate authorities. Another Office of the President official confirmed that the government had pledged its cooperation with the US authorities in facilitating the extradition procedures.
Stabroek News has been informed that once the Ministry of Foreign Affairs certifies that an extradition order between Guyana and the US exists, the Minister of Home Affairs, having satisfied himself that the information discloses the commission of an offence covered by the treaty, would authorise the Chief Magistrate to
proceed with the request and to issue the necessary warrants for the arrest of the persons named in the request. It is only at that time that the persons named would be made public, since the indictment would have been unsealed.
Stabroek News understands that at this time none of the agencies that will be integral to the process - the police, the Chief Magistrate and the Chambers of the Director of Public Prosecu-tions - have been informed that the requests have been received and have been given instructions as to the actions they would be required to take.
The extradition requests follow the arrests of a number of Guyanese in Baltimore, Maryland and in Brooklyn and Queens, New York. They have since been placed before the New York courts on drug trafficking and money laundering charges.
Some of those arrested have been cooperating with the authorities, and on the basis of the information they have supplied, the New York District Attorney's office has been able to obtain grand jury indictments of persons resident in Guyana who are implicated.