CCJ reserves ruling in Guyana nationals extradition matter

The Trinidad-based Caribbean Court of Jus­tice (CCJ) Tues­day re­served its rul­ing in the ex­tra­di­tion mat­ter in­volv­ing the Op­po­si­tion Leader in Guyana, Azrud­din Mo­hamed, and his bil­lion­aire busi­ness­man fa­ther, Nazar Mo­hamed.

“We are not yet in a po­si­tion to give a de­ci­sion on the ap­pli­ca­tion be­fore us; there­fore, we are go­ing to re­serve un­til such time as we are so able,” said CCJ Pres­i­dent, Jus­tice Win­ston An­der­son.

“Now, the court is of course sen­si­tive and aware of the fact that we are deal­ing with ex­tra­di­tion mat­ters and these should be han­dled with ex­pe­di­tion, but ob­vi­ous­ly equal­ly we want to give due care and con­sid­er­a­tion to the ar­gu­ments that have been put be­fore us and to en­sure that the ap­pli­ca­tion is giv­en due con­sid­er­a­tion. So, we will have our de­ci­sion as soon as is rea­son­ably prac­ti­cal,” he added.

On Oc­to­ber 30, 2025, the Unit­ed States gov­ern­ment sub­mit­ted a re­quest to Guyana seek­ing their ex­tra­di­tion to face an 11-count crim­i­nal in­dict­ment, in­clud­ing al­le­ga­tions of con­spir­a­cy, mail and wire fraud, and mon­ey laun­der­ing.

Fol­low­ing re­ceipt of the re­quest, Guyana’s Home Af­fairs Min­is­ter, Onei­dge Wal­rond, is­sued an Au­thor­i­ty to Pro­ceed (ATP) un­der the Fugi­tive Of­fend­ers Act with Mag­is­trate Judy Latch­man on Oc­to­ber 31, is­su­ing the ar­rest war­rants, for­mal­ly com­menc­ing ex­tra­di­tion pro­ceed­ings in the Court of Com­mit­tal, which re­main on­go­ing.

But in De­cem­ber last year, the ap­pli­cants ini­ti­at­ed ju­di­cial re­view pro­ceed­ings against the Min­is­ter of Home Af­fairs, the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al and the Mag­is­trate, chal­leng­ing the va­lid­i­ty of the ATP to pro­ceed and sought a stay of the ex­tra­di­tion process.

But their claim was dis­missed by the High Court on Feb­ru­ary 4 this year and by the Court of Ap­peal on March 17.

The Mo­hameds are now seek­ing spe­cial leave to ap­peal to the CCJ, Guyana’s high­est and fi­nal court and while the High Court and the Court of Ap­peal re­fused to stay the ex­tra­di­tion pro­ceed­ings, at a case man­age­ment con­fer­ence held on March 25, the CCJ grant­ed an in­ter­im stay of the ex­tra­di­tion pro­ceed­ings pend­ing the de­ter­mi­na­tion of this ap­pli­ca­tion for spe­cial leave.

On Tues­day, fol­low­ing the pre­sen­ta­tion of ar­gu­ments from all the par­ties via video con­fer­ence in which the CCJ had aso or­dered, among oth­er things, that the hear­ing of the ap­pli­ca­tion for spe­cial leave be treat­ed as the hear­ing of the sub­stan­tive ap­peal, the pan­el of judges re­served their rul­ing in the mat­ter.

Jus­tice Win­ston An­der­son said that the in­ter­im stay of pro­ceed­ings will “ob­vi­ous­ly con­tin­ue un­til the de­ci­sion is made by this court on the ap­pli­ca­tion” adding that the CCJ does not seek to reg­u­late pub­lic com­men­tary on ju­di­cial mat­ters.

“We are well aware that coun­sel has a right to free speech and we en­cour­age the ex­er­cise there­of, of course. How­ev­er, state­ments which are made out­side of these pro­ceed­ings, and which could have the ef­fect of un­der­min­ing the fair­ness of the pro­ceed­ings or which could pub­lic con­fi­dence in the ad­min­is­tra­tion of jus­tice should be avoid­ed and we would ex­pect coun­cil on both sides to ad­here to their pro­fes­sion­al re­spon­si­bil­i­ties as far as that is con­cerned,” he said.

“We hope that that is­sue does not arise for any fur­ther com­ment by this court. But I am pret­ty sure coun­cil un­der­stands the need for prop­er be­hav­iour in this re­gard, and I say coun­sel of course on all sides,” Jus­tice An­der­son added. —PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad (CMC)