Data on indicted Guyanese released here on need-to-know basis -Luncheon
Stabroek News
March 16, 2007
Local authorities may have had no idea that Guyanese businessman and popular motor racer Peter Morgan was on the United States' wanted list since for Guyana, access to such information is provided on a need-to-know basis, Cabinet Secretary Dr Roger Luncheon said yesterday.
And Dr Luncheon said he doubts whether any mechanism is in place under the single domestic space arrangement for the ongoing CWC games for the United States or any such country to make a standard submission to all of the Caricom territories simultaneously.
Asked at a post-Cabinet media briefing yesterday whether Guyana had access to the US list of Guyanese, Luncheon said the US government or international agencies dealing with criminal matters, "pretty much determine which jurisdictions they would serve [with] notices of intending criminal interventions or actions to be taken by the authorities.
"So it could very well be that even without informing Guyana specifically about the Guyanese who had been indicted or is the subject of an indictment [they] could inform Trinidad or Jamaica depending on the decision made by either the international agencies, Interpol or the British, Canadian, US…," he said. He said further that none of the Caricom countries could claim they are "reading from the same page" and that they are all familiar with what each one is doing.
"It is however in the context of the creation of the single domestic space that the entire circumstances are revolutionized because at that point in time when it is created there is one jurisdiction," he added.
He explained that while Guyana was involved in the single domestic space in the context of the CWC, the information with regard to the database set up for security reasons is not present in Guyana.
"We are involved but the virtual reality is that the data is not here and Guyana's access to information is done on a need to know basis."
In a dramatic swoop and with the new intra-regional security arrangement in place, US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agents working with Trinidad authorities on Friday last seized the businessman at Piarco International Airport, just days after an indictment was unsealed in a New York court charging him with three counts of drug conspiracy.
Morgan subsequently appeared in a Port of Spain Magistrate's Court and has been accused of being a primary supplier of cocaine to Trinidad, Barbados, St Maarten and Canada. Bail was refused pending an extradition hearing.
Head of the T&T Central Authority Unit (CAU) in the Ministry of the Attorney-General attorney David West told the court on Monday that Morgan was a primary cocaine supplier to Trinidad, Barbados, St Maarten and Canada and that between October 2001 and 2003 the Guyanese trafficked in between 15 kilos and 100 kilos of cocaine to these countries and the US.
The Oleander Gardens resident was arrested on a provisional arrest warrant. West told the court on Monday that the Trinidadian authorities are awaiting certain documentation from the US Government before the process of extraditing Morgan commences. The matter continues on Monday.
According to the warrant, between October 1, 2001 and August 31, 2003, Morgan allegedly knowingly and intentionally conspired with David Narine, Susan Narine, Hung Fung Mar and persons unknown to import cocaine. During the same period, Morgan also allegedly imported cocaine into the US.