Ali mourns passing of ex-Suriname President Santokhi who targeted “Shaheed “Roger” Khan

Last Updated on Monday, 30 March 2026, 23:27 by Writer

President Irfaan Ali on Monday said he was saddened at the sudden passing of ex-Suriname President, Chandrikapersad Santokhi who had played a major role in the arrest of then Guyanese drug kingpin, Shaheed “Roger” Khan 20 years ago.

“The region has lost a fine statesman, one who carried the mantle of leadership with grace and humility. Guyana has lost a friend, one who gave of himself freely and without pretence. I have lost a friend, someone whose presence in this world made the burdens of leadership lighter and the triumphs sweeter,” Dr Ali said in a statement shortly after news broke of Santokhi’s death.

Santokhi, 67, fell ill at his home in Lelydorp on Monday afternoon and was urgently transported to the emergency room of the Academic Hospital Paramaribo for further treatment following initial medical care.

The cause of his death was not immediately known.

As Minister of Justice and Police, Santokhi had played a critical role in the arrest of Khan in Suriname on June 15, 2006 after he had skipped the border to evade a massive joint services operation here.

On Santokhi’s instructions, Khan was placed on a Trinidad-bound Caribbean Airlines flight ostensibly to be returned to Guyana.

Santokhi had ordered Khan’s departure, saying that he was a national security threat including that he had links to a number of alleged murder plots in that country.

However, US marshals were at Trinidad’s Piarco International Airport where they collected and flew him to New York where he was trialled and convicted for drugs trafficking.

He was deported on September 20, 2019.

Before his arrest in Suriname, Khan had been named in the US’ 2006 International Narcotics Control Strategy Report.

In 2005, the Guyana Forestry Commission granted a State Forest Exploratory Permit for a large tract of land in Guyana’s interior to Aurelius Inc., a company controlled by Khan.

Such concessions in the remote interior may allow drug traffickers to establish autonomous outposts beyond the reach of Guyanese law enforcement.

While evading Guyanese police and soldiers, statements in the privately-owned Kaieteur News newspaper had appeared in his name claiming that he had prevented the then Bharrat Jagdeo-led administration from being toppled in a coup.

Months after the Mashramani Day 2002 violent jailbreak that spawned into heavily armed gangs holed up in Buxton, East Coast Demerara, Khan was at the centre of a mission to crush them at a time when the government had believed that Guyanese soldiers had turned a blind eye.

Despite a denial by then health minister Dr Leslie Ramsammy, evidence tendered in a United States Court included a letter authorising the sale of a sophisticated mobile phone triangulation and location computer that is only sold to governments.

A computer with those features were seized by soldiers when they intercepted a bulletproof vehicle with Khan and several associates at Good Hope, East Coast Demerara on December 4, 2002.

Among the weapons seized that day was a specialised assault rifle usually used by the US military.

Seventeen years later in 2023, Mr Jagdeo publicly admitted that the echelons of the GDF had done little or nothing to combat the gangs that were responsible for robberies, kidnappings, murders — including two massacres — and arson.

“I will want to explore how in that difficult period when the leadership of the army did not support the fight against the criminals who were massacring people, how we had to navigate that difficult period and Roger Luncheon was at the centre of it to keep the people of this country safe when the people who were vested by our Constitution and laws to protect them did not do their job,” Mr Jagdeo had said at a “Night of Reflections” for the late Luncheon on August 18, 2023, who was the Cabinet Secretary, Head of the Presidential Secretariat and Chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee.