GEORGETOWN, Guyana, CMC – Lawyers representing the leader of the main opposition New Invest in Nationhood (WIN) Party, Azruddin Mohamed, and his billionaire businessman father, Nazar “Shell” Mohamed, say they will appeal a ruling by the Chief Justice that their extradition matter before a magistrates’ court could go ahead on Tuesday.
“We are disappointed that the Chief Justice did not find that on the arguments and have a regard to the circumstances of this case that a stay was warranted in the circumstances,” said Roysdale Forde, one of the attorneys representing the Mohameds.
“We disagree with the decision respectfully, and we will be filing an appeal to the Full Court, and we will be seeking a stay of the proceedings at the level of the Full Court,” Forde said, noting that the appeal could be filed later Monday or early on Tuesday.
“The stay has not been granted, but there are other strategic moves that we will make tomorrow to bring these proceedings to a halt so that these issues can be determined,” Forde said.
He said that the matter is likely to be a long and arduous process, potentially progressing through the Court of Appeal and ultimately to the Trinidad-based Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ), regardless of whether a stay is granted at this stage.
The Mohameds remain on GUY$150,000 (One Guyana dollar, 0.004 cents) bail each.
The United States government had, on October 30, 2025, requested the extradition of the 76-year-old businessman and his 38-year -old son after they were accused of multiple charges, including wire fraud, mail fraud, money laundering, conspiracy, aiding and abetting, and customs-related violations connected to an alleged US$50 million gold export and tax evasion scheme.
In his ruling on Monday, Chief Justice Navindra Singh said that, in assessing the balance of convenience, a stay of proceedings is a drastic remedy in the circumstances presented to the Court, where the constitutional issue (s) can be determined without halting the extradition process. No immediate and irreversible harm has been demonstrated.
In his decision, Chief Justice Singh addressed the public-interest element. He said the Mohameds have not established that allowing the committal proceedings to continue will cause irreparable harm.
“No surrender order is presently imminent.” He reasoned that the Magistrate’s proceedings are preliminary in nature and may result in discharge, and that, even if committal occurs, the applicants retain the right to challenge any surrender order before its execution. He said further that the risk of onward extradition to a third state remains hypothetical at this stage and is not sufficient to justify halting statutory proceedings.
On the point of whether the balance of convenience between the applicants’ interest and the public interest favours intervention, the Chief Justice said the court must balance the their interests with respect to liberty pending determination of the proceedings and meaningful access to constitutional justice against a substantial Public Interest in honouring Guyana’s international extradition obligations, maintaining confidence in the administration of justice and preventing the use of constitutional litigation as a device for delay.
“The public interest would be undermined if extradition proceedings could be routinely stayed by the filing of constitutional motions raising issues capable of later resolution,” he said.
Singh set January 14 as the date to begin hearings into the two High Court cases brought by the Mohameds challenging the extradition proceedings, namely the constitutionality of several provisions of the Fugitive Offenders Act. The other is that the Authority To Proceed granted by the Home Affairs Minister, Oneidge Walrond, has been infected by explicit political bias against the leader of the WIN party.
Attorney General and Minister of Legal Affairs, Anil Nandlall, in welcoming the Chief Justice’s ruling, told reporters that if the magistrate rules against the Mohameds, they would be immediately taken into custody pending any further legal challenges.
Nandlall said courts around the world have rejected any intervention that seeks to stay, stop, or delay the committal hearing from taking place because, after they are held, they say “there is an elaborate regime of challenges that the law provides for any party who is aggrieved by the committal hearing ruling.”
He said that “in-built regime” stays the extradition process while those challenges are exercised.
“Clearly, the scheme of the law, the intent of the law to allow the extradition process to be fluid and for those who are aggrieved by it to invoke the remedial provision that the law permits for challenges to take place, but in a manner contemplated and provided for by the law,” Nandlall told reporters.
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