A Caribbean court rules that a U.S. extradition process against Guyana’s opposition leader can resume

A U.S. ex­tra­di­tion process against Guyana’s main op­po­si­tion leader and his fa­ther—want­ed on gold smug­gling and mon­ey laun­der­ing charges—can re­sume, af­ter they had legal­ly chal­lenged the re­quest, a Caribbean re­gion­al court ruled on Wednes­day.

The Caribbean Court of Jus­tice ruled against Azrud­din Mo­hamed and his fa­ther Nazar Mo­hamed who were in­dict­ed in Flori­da last year in a case that has un­der­scored per­sis­tent gov­ern­ment cor­rup­tion in the oil-rich South Amer­i­can na­tion.

Azrud­din Mo­hamed, who leads the sec­ond-largest par­ty in Guyana’s Par­lia­ment, was elect­ed the coun­try’s op­po­si­tion leader in Jan­u­ary, just six months af­ter found­ing the We In­vest in Na­tion­hood Par­ty.

The two have de­nied the ac­cu­sa­tions and fought the ex­tra­di­tion pro­ceed­ings be­fore the Caribbean Court of Jus­tice in Trinidad, which serves as the fi­nal court of ap­peal for sev­er­al coun­tries in the re­gion.

It was not im­me­di­ate­ly clear when the pro­ceed­ings would re­sume.

“This is, of course, a com­pli­cat­ed mat­ter,” Jus­tice Win­ston An­der­son said dur­ing the hear­ing, which was livestreamed.

At­tor­neys for the Mo­hameds did not speak dur­ing the hear­ing and did not re­turn mes­sages seek­ing com­ment lat­er. The de­fence had ar­gued that some of the charges the duo face are not ex­tra­ditable of­fens­es.

Azrud­din Mo­hamed was seen sit­ting out­doors dur­ing the pro­ceed­ings, smil­ing oc­ca­sion­al­ly. Af­ter the hear­ing, he post­ed a video on so­cial me­dia say­ing that “the work of the peo­ple must con­tin­ue.”

“The fight is still on,” he said. “The CCJ did not rule in our favour, but we re­spect the court’s de­ci­sion.”

Mean­while, Nazar Mo­hamed told The As­so­ci­at­ed Press that while it is too ear­ly to re­act com­pre­hen­sive­ly, their at­tor­neys would ad­vise on the way for­ward.

“It is a 256-page judge­ment,” he said. “Our lawyers are check­ing it through. Based on what lawyers say, all is not lost as yet. ... We will be fight­ing all the way.”

Azrud­din Mo­hamed is one of Guyana’s wealth­i­est cit­i­zens. He and his fa­ther have been out on bond since their ar­rest last year fol­low­ing the U.S. ex­tra­di­tion re­quest.

The U.S. Trea­sury De­part­ment al­so has sanc­tioned the duo for al­leged­ly smug­gling more than 10,000 kilo­grams (22,000 pounds) of gold to the Unit­ed States from Guyana and evad­ing more than $50 mil­lion in tax­es.

The Mo­hameds had been among Guyana’s largest gold buy­ers and ex­porters, sell­ing gold to buy­ers in Mi­a­mi and Dubai, the Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates, ac­cord­ing to the U.S. Jus­tice De­part­ment. They al­so ran one of the most suc­cess­ful for­eign ex­change out­lets and pos­sess ex­ten­sive re­al es­tate hold­ings.

While the U.S. gov­ern­ment has tar­get­ed the two, it re­mains on friend­ly terms with the ad­min­is­tra­tion of Guyana’s Pres­i­dent Ir­faan Ali as the coun­try ex­pe­ri­ences an eco­nom­ic boom thanks to mas­sive off­shore oil de­posits that Venezuela has long claimed as theirs. —GEORGE­TOWN, Guyana (AP)

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Sto­ry by BERT WILKIN­SON and DÁNI­CA CO­TO | As­so­ci­at­ed Press

Dan­i­ca Co­to re­port­ed from San Juan, Puer­to Ri­co.