Morgan's lawyers to challenge extradition today
Stabroek News
May 15, 2007
Trinidadian lawyers for drug-indicted Guyanese businessman Peter Morgan will today mount their challenge against the order for the auto dealer to be extradited to the US to face drug trafficking charges.
Speaking to Stabroek News yesterday from Trinidad, Attorney-at-law Rajiv Persaud said the defence team has already prepared a writ of habeas corpus, which he said would be filed in the Trinidad and Tobago High Court today. Persaud said that among other things the writ is asking for Morgan to be released as he was being unlawfully detained.
Persaud said he could not say whether the matter would be heard today or in the coming days. Today is the last day the court had given the defence to file an appeal against the order. Asked why it took so long to mount the challenge, Persaud said the preparation was a tedious exercise. He said filing such a writ called for careful consideration as the matter was a complicated one.
Persaud maintained yesterday that his client should not be flown to the US to face charges arguing that a case was not yet made out.
Chief Magistrate Sherman Mc Nicholls had given the defence 15 days from the day he had handed down the order within which to appeal the order.
The extradition hearing was completed two weeks ago, during which time the police officer who arrested Morgan at Piarco Airport and the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of the Attorney General gave statements.
The Trinidad government has alleged that between October 2001 and 2003, Morgan trafficked in 15 to 100 kilos of cocaine to St Maarten, Trinidad, Barbados and Canada. He was nabbed on March 9 on a provisional arrest warrant by US drug agents working with Trinidadian authorities at Piarco International Airport, just days after an indictment was unsealed in a New York court charging him with three counts of drug conspiracy. According to the provisional 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.
Morgan, 46, of Oleander Gardens, East Coast Demerara was one of 14 Guyanese the US government had indicated it wanted to extradite two years ago to face drug trafficking charges. When he was arrested, news media in Trinidad had reported that Morgan was known to travel frequently to Panama, Colombia, Venezuela and Margarita Island and had been under surveillance for some time. His case, according to reports, is linked to the arrest in 2004 of Guyanese Sabrina and Arnold Budhram and the smashing of a drug ring. They were said to have been part of a ring that smuggled large amounts of money from drug operations.
Sources said the auto dealer, who is also involved in motor racing, had been under surveillance by US authorities for a number of years. Morgan faces a maximum of life imprisonment if he is convicted on the three counts of conspiracy to import cocaine into the US.
The motor racer had been charged in December 1999 in Guyana following an arms bust at the John Fernandes wharf in Georgetown but was freed after his co-accused pleaded guilty and was sentenced to one year in prison.