Roger Khan U.S. lawyer here to build defence case
By Wendella Davidson
Guyana Chronicle
April 26, 2007
THE conditions under which controversial Guyanese businessman, Shaheed `Roger’ Khan, also known as `Shortman’, are being held in a federal prison in Manhattan in the United States, are “horrendous”, one of his U.S. lawyers said yesterday.
Robert Simels, at a news conference at Le Meridien Pegasus Hotel in Georgetown, said he is here to seek to garner as much information as possible to help strengthen his client’s line of defence against 19 drug-related charges which the U.S. Government has slapped against him.
The initial charge `conspiring to import cocaine’ was as a result of an outstanding indictment. The 18 additional ones include conspiracy to distribute and intent to distribute; distribution of and possession with intent to distribute; international distribution conspiracy for the importation of cocaine on December 2003 and March 2004 as well as between April and May 2004; importing cocaine in March 2005; and importing cocaine on eight occasions between February 2003 and May 2004.
One of those charges, should there be a conviction, carries a punishment of life imprisonment.
Khan was nabbed on June 29, 2006, by U.S. enforcement agents at the Piarco International Airport in Trinidad as he deplaned from a commercial flight out of Suriname from where he was deported after spending some time in prison there without being charged, and flown to the U.S.
Simels, who along with Miami-based attorney John Bergendahl, have fought unsuccessfully in pre-liberty hearings before Justice Dora Lizzette Irizary, presiding at the U.S. Eastern District Court on Tillary Street in downtown Brooklyn, since Khan’s incarceration in the U.S., yesterday said they are still not privy as to why Khan is housed in the special section of the prison.
According to the attorney, of the 1,500 prison population, 24 of the inmates including Khan are housed in this section where they are locked down for 23 hours daily and are allowed only one telephone call every 30 days.
In addition, on account of the restrictions, whenever access to a lawyer is granted, it can take as long as three hours waiting before the lawyer and client can meet in person, he said.
Simels told reporters too of his desire to have at least three U.S. officials testify as witnesses for Khan.
They are Steve Lesniak, who was kidnapped while playing at the Lusignan golf course here, and 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.
Tuggle and Molina were said to have information on Khan’s alleged kidnapping in Trinidad.
Thomas is named as one of the officials present at the Ocean View International Hotel, Liliendaal, when Khan met U.S. officials to brief them “on his alleged efforts to fight crime other than commit himself,” according to his lawyer.
Simels said that because witnesses here in Guyana are reluctant to come forward and in the event the U.S. Embassy does not grant the needed visas to potential witnesses of his client, he proposes to seek the cooperation of the federal judge in having the prosecutor and other relevant personnel travel to Guyana so that the depositions of such witnesses can be video-taped and preserved video-taped to be used during the trial.
Simels contends that the charges against his client are “politically motivated” rather than drug-related and, and on the witnesses the U.S. Government says it intends to produce in the prosecution of Khan, he said some are known to be not credible, adding that some are so guilty they would do anything, such as testify against someone else to get off. He added that under this system even killers are walking free.
Simels yesterday confirmed that it was his client who was involved in the `infamous’ taping of former Commissioner of Police, Winston Felix and many others.
Sources have told the Guyana Chronicle that the U.S. Government has been successful in its bid to get information from Suriname as it seeks to build a strong case against Khan.
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.
Rodrigues, Belfield and Roberts spent more than five months under harsh conditions in separate jails in the former Dutch country before they were deported to Guyana by way of the Corentyne River on November 22, 2006.
The three were subsequently placed before the courts here and each fined $20,000 for illegal departure.