Police claim Morgan heavily involved in drug, firearms trade
-- denied bail in Trinidad
Guyana Chronicle
April 17, 2007
(NEWSDAY) -- GUYANESE businessman Peter Morgan, wanted in the United States of America on three drug charges, was yesterday denied bail and remanded in custody when he appeared before Chief Magistrate Sherman Mc Nicolls in the Port-of-Spain Eighth Magistrates’ Court.
Morgan, a foreign used parts dealer for trucks and tractors, was held at the Piarco International Airport on March 9 while en route to Guyana. He was returning to Guyana from Panama when two agents of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) arrested him on a provisional warrant after being indicted on three conspiracy to traffic cocaine charges.
Morgan’s attorney Ravi Rajcoomar yesterday argued that the fact that his client was well-travelled was not an indication that he was a flight risk. He said that vacations as well as Morgan’s job as a foreign-used dealer often took him to destinations as diverse as Colombia, Panama, Brazil, Singapore, Barbados and St Maarten.
The lawyer added that two friends of Morgan had come forward to provide surety in the event of bail being granted. He agreed that the relevant considerations for a bail application under the Bail Act included whether of not the defendant would be willing to surrender to custody, but argued that this must be “balanced off” by the fact that two locals had come forward to act as bailors.
The questions, Rajcoomar argued, were (1) whether Morgan would be granted bail if he was an ordinary citizen of Trinidad and Tobago and (2) whether there were substantial grounds to believe that Morgan would flee.
David West, of the Central Authority Unit of the Attorney General’s Office, and representing the requesting State, said that Morgan was “heavily involved” in the illegal drug and firearms trades, according to reports from the Georgetown-based Guyanese Criminal Investigations Department (CID).
“He is not a national of Trinidad and Tobago, he has no ties to Trinidad and Tobago...(if released on bail) he can flee at any time. He can be on a boat to Venezuela in a couple of hours,” West said before further reminding Mc Nicolls of Trinidad and Tobago’s international treaty obligations with the U.S.
Mc Nicolls refused the application for bail on the basis that Morgan did not have enough ties to Trinidad and Tobago and was as such a potential “flight risk”.
The extradition proceedings continue on Thursday.
The charges against Morgan are that:
1) Between 2001 and August 2003 within the Eastern District of New York and elsewhere Morgan together with others did knowingly and intentionally conspire to import over five kilogrammes of cocaine into the U.S.;
2) During the same period he knowingly and intentionally conspired to possess and distribute cocaine into the U.S.; and that
3) He conspired with others to distribute the cocaine, and knew that it would be imported into the U.S.
All of the indictments are in violation of Title 21 United States Code Sections 963 and 960.