Judge in Roger Khan case ill
Guyana Chronicle
January 5, 2007
THE much-anticipated bail hearing for controversial Guyanese businessman, Shaheed `Roger’ Khan, in New York, suffered a setback yesterday with the illness of Justice Dora Lizzette Irizary, presiding at the U.S. Eastern District Court on Tillary Street in downtown Brooklyn.
Khan, alias `Short Man’, is charged with conspiracy to import cocaine into the United States.
Reports out of New York said Khan’s defence team, which is seeking to have him released on bail and has reportedly offered a hefty US$3M bail package in real estate and some 10 guarantors to sign a bond, and the prosecution which is vigorously opposing on the grounds that he is a “flight risk” having fled from the U.S. to avoid prosecution in 1994, appeared all set to present their arguments yesterday.
On hand too were a full representation of Guyanese-based media operatives and close relatives and friends of Khan but they will all now have to wait until January 16, the next date set for the hearing.
At his last court appearance on December 6 last year before Justice Irizary, Khan’s defence team of attorneys, Robert Simmels and Miami-based John Bergendahl, failed in their bid to secure bail for him, with the judge deeming him a flight risk.
The defence had on that occasion, too, sought the court’s approval to have three U.S. officials, DEA Agent Gary Tuggle, and Special Agent Jason Molina of the Department of Homeland Security and Michael Thomas, Deputy Chief of Mission of the U.S. Embassy in Georgetown, Guyana, produced in court as witnesses to testify as to how Khan arrived in the U.S.
But the judge would have none of that saying she did not see the presence of the officials as relevant.
One line of the prosecution’s argument against bail for Khan is that on January 6, 1992, he was convicted in Montgomery County, Maryland, for break and enter and received an 18-month sentence and 36 months of probation.
But while on probation, Khan again ran foul of the law and was arrested in Burlington, Vermont, with receiving and possessing firearms and was indicted and released on bail in November 1993.
Khan, however, reneged on the promises of his pre-trial release and fled the U.S. and returned to Guyana in 1994 to avoid prosecution, with an outstanding warrant for his arrest for violating those conditions still in effect in Maryland.
Sources out of New York have told the Guyana Chronicle that the U.S. Government, in seeking to build a strong case against Khan, has requested the assistance of Suriname.
Khan was held there along with three of his alleged Guyanese bodyguards, Sean Belfield, Paul Rodrigues and Lloyd Roberts when he fled Guyana, following the posting of a bulletin for him to present himself for questioning by law enforcement officials here.
Khan, the other three Guyanese and five Surinamese were held in what Surinamese police said was the result of a huge drug bust involving some 213 kilos of cocaine on June 15, 2006.
The controversial businessmen and his bodyguards, who the Surinamese authorities at first claimed were part of a criminal organisation, were, however, all freed.
Khan was deported from Suriname on June 29, 2006 and placed on a flight to Trinidad from where he was nabbed and taken to the U.S.
Rodrigues, Belfield and Roberts, having spent more than five months under harsh conditions in separate jails in the former Dutch country and without bail, were deported to Guyana by way of the Corentyne River on November 22, 2006.
They were subsequently placed before the courts here and each fined $20,000 for illegal departure.