US accuses Peter Morgan of cocaine conspiracy
… Trinidad court refuses bail application
Kaieteur News
March 13, 2007
Peter Morgan, the Guyanese who was arrested at the Piarco International Airport on Friday, had his first day in a Trinidad court yesterday, and was further remanded to next week Monday for another hearing.
Morgan was an in-transit passenger en route to Guyana, having travelled from Panama earlier in the day. Two drug enforcement agents and ranks of the Trinidad Police arrested him, at around noon, as he was preparing to leave the twin-island republic.
In court, his lawyers made a bail application after the prosecution indicated that the substantive warrants would be in place by May 7. However, the application was denied on the ground that Morgan has no ties to Trinidad and Tobago.
Immediately, the lawyers acknowledged that Morgan has no ties to Trinidad and Tobago but that the arrest was made in that country, instead of Guyana, where it should have been properly made.
One of the lawyers, Randy Depoo, who helped fashion the treaty that came into effect in 1996, and who is representing Morgan, said that the legal team would be approaching a judge in chambers to seek a review of the bail denial.
Morgan was arrested on a provisional warrant which, under the treaty signed by the United States and Trinidad, allows the authorities in Trinidad to detain him for up to 60 days.
Mr. Depoo said that, in court yesterday, the prosecution said that Morgan was being prosecuted for conspiring with three people to distribute cocaine in the United States. The three were identified as David Narine, his wife, Susan Narine, and a Chinese national, Hung Fung Mar.
Narine and his wife were arrested with cocaine in the United States, and are currently being prosecuted.
The lawyers said that Morgan was shocked when the charges were read to him. They said that he not only denied the allegation, but he also claimed no knowledge of the Chinese national.
Narine and his wife are Guyanese nationals who, while in Guyana, had conducted business with Morgan. They had purchased vehicles from him in the past.
Mr. Depoo said that, from all appearances, the Americans are on a fishing expedition and, in the end, his client would be freed of the allegations.
Morgan's continued detention is being facilitated by the treaty signed by the then Prime Minister, Basdeo Panday, and the then United States Secretary of State, Warren Christopher, in 1996. That treaty replaced the one that was entered into between Britain and the United States in 1931, and became a part of the Trinidad laws with independence in 1962.
The 1931 treaty is the one governing American requests for extradition from Guyana.
While the existing treaty between Trinidad and the United States allows for deportation on the grounds of probable cause, the 1931 treaty demanded that the United States establish a prima facie case against the accused before any deportation could be effected.