GEORGETOWN, Guyana, CMC – Chief Justice Navindra Singh is expected to deliver a ruling on Monday, January 5, next year, as to whether or not the extradition hearing involving the leader of the main opposition We Invest in Nationhood (WIN), Azruddin Mohamed, and his father, Nazar “Shell” Mohamed, should continue before a local magistrate.
Lawyers for the Mohameds are seeking an order to temporarily halt an extradition hearing in the magistrates’ court pending the outcome of a constitutional challenge to the Fugitive Offenders Act.
If the Chief Justice rules against them, the matter is expected to continue before Principal Magistrate Judy Latchman on January 6 and 8 next year.
Attorney Siand Dhurjon, who is one of the lawyers for the Mohameds, presented their arguments on Tuesday morning. At the same time, Attorney General and Minister of Legal Affairs, Anil Nandlall, delivered his arguments in the afternoon.
According to an affidavit, filed on December 29, 2025, in answer to the notice of application for the High Court to hear the challenge to the Fugitive Offenders Act, Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Sharon Roopchand-Edwards said “these proceedings are an abuse of the process, as the Fugitive Offenders Act provides an adequate regime of due process to which the applicants are entitled, if aggrieved by the ultimate decision of the Learned Magistrate”.
She said that “public interest and the legislative intent dictate that extradition proceedings be concluded with due expedition.
The United States government had, on October 30 this year, requested the extradition of the 73-year-old businessman and his 38-year-old son on multiple charges in the United States, which were unsealed by a Southern District of Florida Grand Jury on October 6, 2025.
The indictment includes 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.
The indictment alleges that between 2017 and June 2024, the accused conspired to defraud the Guyana government by evading export taxes and royalties on over 10,000 kilograms of gold, using falsified customs declarations and re-used export seals to disguise unpaid duties. The indictment further references the attempted shipment of US$5.3 million in undeclared gold seized at Miami International Airport, and the alleged under-invoicing of a luxury vehicle valued at over US$680 000.
The Mohameds’ challenge to the Fugitive Offenders Act followed a decision not to transfer those of similar grounds to the High Court because they were ‘frivolous and vexatious’.
The magistrate then set January 6 and 8, 2026, for a hearing on whether the Mohameds should be extradited to the United States to face trial in a Florida federal court.
The High Court is being asked to order that several sections of the Fugitive Offenders Act, individually and collectively, breach the principles of the separation of powers and the rule of law.
Further, the Mohameds, through their lawyer, Roysdale Forde, are also arguing that those provisions of the Fugitive Offenders (Amendment) Act No. 30 of 2009 infringe the constitutional principles that regulate the independence of the judiciary pursuant to Article 122A of the Constitution of Guyana, their rights to liberty as guaranteed by Article 139 of the Constitution of Guyana, due process of law as guaranteed by Article 139 of Guyana’s Constitution and that the courts are not to rely upon those amending provisions when dealing with the applicants extradition.
The Mohameds have filed separate proceedings challenging Home Affairs Minister Oneidge Walrond’s issuance of an Authority To Proceed (ATP) with hearing the extradition request.
Speaking with reporters following the court proceedings, Nandlall described the challenge brought by the Mohameds as nothing more than a delaying tactic.
“In my view, no serious issues have been raised…we got to go through the arguments though [but] I believe this is part and parcel of the expressed intent of one of the applications, Azruddin Mohamed, to delay this matter…I don’t think that they will succeed.
“Extradition law is quite settled; it’s a straightforward area of law now. There are complicated extradition cases. This is certainly not one of them,” Nandlall told reporters.
He said that the Fugitive Offenders (Amendment) Act provides mechanisms through which the magistrate’s ruling in extradition cases can be appealed.
“The law itself, that is to say, the Fugitive Offenders Act, which governs extradition in Guyana, has in it a very elaborate and comprehensive system by which a person who is aggrieved by a decision in the extradition proceedings can challenge that decision.
“So, after the magistrate rules, for example, there is a right to challenge the magistrate’s decision in the High Court, and then there’s a right to appeal that decision to the Court of Appeal, and every time the challenge is made, the law says that proceedings are stayed until those challenges are heard and determined.
“The point that I’m making is that the extradition law itself, the Fugitive Offenders Act, has a built-in mechanism that provides a comprehensive regime of safeguards and due process for persons who are affected by extradition proceedings. And there is no need, therefore, for these collateral excursions and challenges to be filed in the High Court and elsewhere. They are intended, I think, to delay, and hopefully they will not succeed,” he added.
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