US informed Guyana no conditions in treaty concerning re-extradition – foreign ministry PS tells court

Last Updated on Wednesday, 18 March 2026, 18:09 by Writer

Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Sharon Roopchand-Edwards on Wednesday admitted under oath that the United States (US) had informed the Guyana government that the extradition treaty between the two countries does not provide for “conditioning” extraditions based on an assurance concerning re-extradition to a third country.

The issue was raised by Mr Roysdale Forde, one of the defence lawyers for billionaire Guyanese gold dealers Azruddin Mohamed and his father, Nazar “Shell” Mohamed during extradition committal proceedings before Principal Magistrate, Judy Latchman.

The Mohameds are battling an extradition request for them to face trial in a Florida court for alleged wire fraud, mail fraud and money laundering connected to their gold trading business.

Under cross examination by Mr Forde, who showed the Permanent Secretary a response to the foreign ministry’s note verbale to the US on December 3, 2025 seeking “assurances” that the Mohameds would not be re-extradited to third countries, she admitted that the US correspondence reads that the treaty did not contain a “basis for conditioning extraditions” based on assurance about re-extradition.

The Permanent Secretary earlier told the court that the Guyana government sought an “assurance” from the United States (US) that the men would not be extradited to a third country.

The Permanent Secretary also told the court that her layman’s understanding was that “assurances” and “undertaking” were the same. “In my mind, undertaking and assurances are the same.,” she said.

But Prosecutor for the US, Jamaican lawyer Herbert McKenzie objected to that line of questioning, contending that it was merely about the choice of words. “In the context of what we are doing, it’s more of one and the same thing. It’s all semantics in the same way. We’re semantically dancing around whether they are extradition documents or extradition documents,” Mr McKenzie said.

However, Mr Forde argued that an assurance and an undertaking were two “completely different things.”

He explained that an assurance related to extradition is a request made by the Guyana government in keeping with the US-UK extradition treaty to which the US would reply.

On the other hand, an undertaking was not provided for in the treaty that the Guyana government was asking be carried out.