AG declines to speak on legality of Guyanese police officer participating in delivering summonses to Rickford Burke in US

Last Updated on Friday, 22 December 2023, 22:38 by Denis Chabrol

Attorney General Anil Nandlall on Friday declined to comment on whether the Guyana government obtained permission from the United States (US) for a Guyana Police Force (GPF) officer to be involved in the service of summonses to anti-government activist, Rickford Burke at his Brooklyn, New York residence.

Asked whether he was comfortable that Assistant Superintendent of Police Rodwell Sarabo did not violate any US law by having met with a US-based Process Server, Mark Wesserman and “they served” the summonses on Mr Burke on December 16, Mr Nandlall said, “I’m not going to express a view.” He said he was unaware whether the US government had contacted the Guyana government on that matter.

Mr Nandlall, who had represented the Guyana Police Force before, instead said such an issue was for that law enforcement agency and the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP). Asked if he was worried, Mr Nandlall said, “I’m not worried at all.”

He indicated that questions about the legality of Assistant Superintendent Sarabo was a matter for a Guyanese court. “There is a forum at which all those objections, legal arguments and legal questions are going to be addressed and that is in the courts where these charges are pending so I would not want to speculate or even offer an opinion,” he said.

Told that under the US Espionage Act, Chinese have been charged and prosecuted (for operating police stations on US soil), the Attorney General said that, “that is a matter for the US and they will do what they feel.” “My opinion will not change what the US will do or will not do.”

The US government had earlier this year invoked Section 951  of the Espionage Act after Chinese police stations had been found to be operating in parts of the US to arrest wanted persons. That law states that whoever other than a diplomatic or consular officer or attaché, acts in the United States as an agent of a foreign government without prior notification to the Attorney General if required shall be fined or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both.

That law states that the term “agent of a foreign government” means an individual who agrees to operate within the United States subject to the direction or control of a foreign government or official, except that such term does not include a duly accredited diplomatic or consular officer of a foreign government.

Head of the  Guyana Police Force’s Criminal Investigations Department, Assistant Commissioner Wendell Blanhum on Friday, too, said questions about whether that law enforcement agency had obtained permission for Mr Sarabo to function in the US “will be answered at the appropriate time.”

Mr Blanhum also said claims by Mr Burke that two men brandished weapons, obstructed his departure, ruffled through correspondence in his mailbox, he was never served with a document and did not sign for or accept a document and that the men left pieces of paper on Burke’s steps “will be addressed in court.”

The summonses require Mr Burke to appear in court on March 28, 2024 to answer charges for  conspiracy to commit a felony,  with regards to the publication of defamatory libel in order to extort money from Afras Mohammed.

Police said subsequently, on the 18th day of August, 2023, two charges were filed at the Vigilance Magistrate’s Court aagainst Mr Burke for that offence. However, police said the accused, who resides in the US, was absent from Court.

He is also accused of  excitement of hostility or ill-will on the grounds of Race, under the Racial Hostility Act; sedition under the Cyber Crime Act; use of a computer system to coerce and intimidate a person, under the Cyber Crime Act; seditious libel contrary to common law; seditious libel under the peace under the Summary Jurisdiction Offences Act, and inciting public terror under the Criminal Law Offences Act.