Last Updated on Tuesday, 13 October 2026, 17:07 by Written By Denis Chabrol
Attorney General Anil Nandlall and defence lawyers for United States (US)-wanted Guyanese billionaire businessmen Azruddin and Nazar Mohamed are at odds over whether an assurance by the American government that they would not be extradited to another country.
Defence lawyer Roysdale Forde, during his arguments to the Guyana Court of Appeal on Tuesday, remarked that the 11-count US Grand Jury indictment refers to gold sales to Dubai.
The US wants the Mohameds to face trial in a Florida federal court or alleged wire fraud, mail fraud and money laundering linked to their gold trading business. They have already been sanctioned by the US Treasury Department for alleged evasion of taxes on gold exports payable to the Guyana government.
But Mr Nandlall told the court that the United States- United Kingdom extradition treaty that Guyana inherited from Britain at independence in 1966 provides for accused persons to be extradited to the requesting State affr which that person has to be returned to Guyana. “There is no mystery. There is no third State that is contemplated by a treaty. This is not a trilateral treaty. It’s a bilateral treaty.
The Mohameds, through their lawyers, are challenging the constitutionality of several provisions of Guyana’s Fugitive Offenders Act. These include the right to personal liberty, protection of freedom of movement, and securing protection of the law., but Mr Nandlall said the defence lawyer could not tell the court how those rights would be infringed.
Outside the courtroom, Mr Forde told reporters that the US’ assurance via diplomatic note would not be legally binding. “The assurance cannot be sufficient. In the first place, the treaty does not provide for an assurance. There is no provision that contemplates parties making an assurance,” he said. Mr Forde said the assurance was made in early December 2025, while the Home Affairs Minister Oneidge Walrond issued the authority to Chief Magistrate Judy Latchman to proceed with the extradition hearing in October. “The law requires that the arrangement must be in place at the time the person is taken into custody so there is no way by any stretch of imagination or logic that the assurances could ever constitute anything contemplated by the Act,” he said.
Mr Forde explained that his courtroom arguments highlighted, among other things, that the Fugitive Offenders Act states that there must be a legal provision that provides for extradition to third State and the minister must give consent. However, “there is no provision for that”.
But the Attorney General said the 150-year old US-United Kingdom extradition treaty has not been breached for that period including 50 years with Guyana as a party.
He said, though, that the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) had decided that it would not adjudicate on an agreement, such as the assurance, between two sovereign States, that diplomatic note is legally enforceable. “When I say accepted, I mean enforced. Countries at the international plane, they deal on the basis if comity, they deal on the basis of good faith, they deal on the basis of a level of propriety from which they do not depart,” he told reporters.
Mr Nandlall said in addition to the treaty provisions, the Guyana government obtained a US assurance that the Mohameds would not be re-extradited to a third country “so the fear that the Mohameds have expressed do not exist, not real, is not founded in reality.”
Chancellor of the Judiciary Roxane George-Wiltshire did not give a date for the decision, saying that the Court of Appeal needed time to peruse the more than 2,000 pages of submissions. Even if the magistrate completes the extradition hearing, she has to await the Court of Appeal’s decision before issuing her decision on whether the Mohameds are to be committed. The businessmen still enjoy a right to appeal the magistrate’s decision if it ks not in their favour.
