GEORGETOWN — The Court of Appeal has reserved its decision in Azruddin and Nazar Mohamed’s constitutional challenge to Guyana’s Fugitive Offenders Act, after Attorney General Anil Nandlall and defence counsel Roysdale Forde sparred on Tuesday over whether a United States promise not to send the pair on to a third country means anything in law.
The father-and-son gold dealers are wanted in Florida on an 11-count federal grand jury indictment alleging wire fraud, mail fraud and money laundering tied to their gold business. The US Treasury Department has already sanctioned them over alleged evasion of export taxes owed to the Guyana government. Their lawsuit argues that parts of the Fugitive Offenders Act breach their constitutional rights to personal liberty, freedom of movement and protection of the law.
The defence case. Forde told the court that the indictment itself refers to gold sales to Dubai, raising the risk that the men could be passed on to another jurisdiction. Speaking to reporters afterward, he argued that the US assurance, delivered by diplomatic note in early December 2025, cannot fill the gap. The extradition treaty makes no provision for assurances, he said, and the Act requires any third-country arrangement, along with ministerial consent, to exist at the time a person is taken into custody. Home Affairs Minister Oneidge Walrond had already authorised the extradition hearing in October 2025, before the note arrived.
The State’s case. Nandlall countered that the treaty Guyana inherited from Britain at independence in 1966 is a two-party agreement between Guyana and the US: a person extradited is tried and then returned to Guyana. “It’s a bilateral treaty,” he told the court, adding that no third state is contemplated. He said the defence had not shown how any constitutional right would actually be infringed.
The Attorney General said the 150-year-old treaty has never been breached, including the half-century Guyana has been party to it. He acknowledged that the Caribbean Court of Justice has declined to rule on whether diplomatic notes between sovereign states are legally enforceable. But he argued that nations deal with each other on good faith and comity, and that the Mohameds’ fears have no basis in reality.
What happens next. Chancellor of the Judiciary Roxane George-Wiltshire set no date for a ruling, saying the court needs time to work through more than 2,000 pages of submissions. Chief Magistrate Judy Latchman may finish hearing evidence in the extradition case, but she must wait for the appeal court before deciding whether to commit the Mohameds. Whatever she rules, the losing side can still appeal.
The hearing went ahead just hours after Azruddin Mohamed’s arrest following a shooting outside the home of Special Branch head Prem Narine, a key witness in the extradition proceedings.
Source: proceedings at the Guyana Court of Appeal, as reported by Demerara Waves. Image is illustrative.
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