Last Updated on Tuesday, 6 January 2026, 21:10 by Writer
Lawyers for city businessmen Azruddin Mohamed and Nazar “Shell” Mohamed failed to convince Principal Magistrate Judy Latchman that the United States’ (US) extradition request for them to face trial in Florida for alleged financial crimes could not be accepted by the court because they were not marked by a top official of the foreign affairs ministry.
After lengthy objections by defence lawyer Siand Dhurjon, the magistrate admitted the documents and assigned her own identifiers for the purpose of the court’s record.
“I’ll allow the evidence to remain on the record,” Ms Latchman said, referring to the note and bundle of documents that were received by the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Sharon Roopchand-Edwards from the US government and transmitted to the Minister of Home Affairs Oneidge Walrond.
Ms Latchman said the objection “goes to weight and not admissibility”.
Lead Prosecutor, Jamaican lawyer Terrence Williams, who is representing the US interests, led the Permanent Secretary in telling the court that she received the extradition request, included in a bundle of documents with “yellow and red ribbons” which has the US State Department’s seals and the signature of the US Secretary of State.
The Permanent Secretary said she “perused” the documents to ensure they synchronised with the diplomatic note. She also identified the document by a “unique” diplomatic note number.
However, Mr Dhurjon said the documents should be disregarded; but Mr Williams said the Permanent Secretary was not dealing with the substantive facts in the case but “only a conduit” in the process.
“There is no requirement on her to read through the bundle of documents as evidence as to whether or not the condition of the Fugitive Offenders Act were met for a finding on whether there should be an extradition or not,” he said.
He said Ms Roopchand-Edwards’ outline was sufficient and so she did not have to state what was contained in them.
Despite the magistrate’s decision, Mr Dhurjon sought to convince the court that the authenticity of the documents were questionable because the Permanent Secretary “gave these documents away” to Minister Walrond with whom she had never interacted.
He emphasised that there were no unique markings on the diplomatic note, ribbons, seal and the US State Department signature or marked by the witness. “In extradition cases, the documents have to be marked,” he said.
Mr Dhurjon said none of the documents disclosed by the prosecution to the defence had any markings as at no time the Permanent Secretary sought t0 make the documents her own by writing, for example, her initials and the date on which she first encountered them.
“This frailty is borne out in all of the documents,” he said.
The defence lawyer said there was also the issue of documentary hearsay, and pointed out that the documents are not specifically exempt under the Fugitive Offenders Act or the Evidence Act to be admissible.
He said the documents before the court “could have come from anywhere, could have been created, innovated by anyone”.
He noted that the amended Fugitive Offenders Act refers to a record of evidence accompanied by an affidavit from an officer of prosecutor, Attorney General or principal law officer.
“It’s most impermissible for evidence such as this to be entered into these proceedings. It is most prejudicial to our client because these are not viva voce proceedings where we will have the ability to question witnesses as to the contents of those documents,” he added.
Prosecutor Herbert McKenzie said in committal proceedings of that nature, “there is no inherent right” to cross-examine witnesses. He said the Fugitive Offenders Act provides for receiving evidence on paper. “This is not a trial. The determination of guilt or innocence does not rely here,” he said.
He said the extradition committal hearing was not the forum to test veracity of material submitted.
Mr Dhurjon, in responding, said “general appearance” of documents was not enough.
The Principal Magistrate’s admission of the documents as evidence was the second defeat that the Mohameds suffered in a matter of hours, the first having been the failure by all three of the Mohameds’ defence lawyers to convince the court that she should not have proceeded with the extradition hearings because of the pending High Court matters.
Relatedly, they said there was appeal to the Full Court of the High Court for an order to prevent the start and continuation of the extradition hearings until the constitutional cases are heard.
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