CJ to rule on February 2 on Mohameds’ constitutional challenge to extradition proceedings

Chief Justice (acting) Navindra Singh has set February 2 to deliver his ruling on the constitutional challenge and judicial review proceedings filed by US-indicted businessmen Azruddin and Nazar Mohamed in their bid to block their extradition to America.

The Mohameds are essentially challenging sections of Guyana’s Fugitive Offenders Act and are seeking to quash the decision of the Minister of Home Affairs to issue the authority to proceed, which launched the extradition proceedings against the father and son duo.

The Mohameds, through their team of lawyers, submitted that the extradition process was tainted by presumed and apparent bias.

However, in his submissions to the court, Attorney General Nandlall said he outlined how in the past, the Mohameds were aligned with the Peoples Progressive Party Civic (PPP/C) government, as he detailed how their relationship unfolded since the announcement of OFAC sanctions against them.

“We showed the long association the Mohameds have had in business, we showed by their own self proclamation…they professed their allegiance to the Peoples Progressive Party (PPP) for many, many years. We talked about the OFAC sanctions and what the OFAC sanctions are and what the repercussions are. We detailed what the government’s position was when the OFAC sanctions came outm that the government made it very clear that it would protect the economy of the country, the financial system of the country and they would cooperate with the United States of America to ensure compliance with the sanctions and that is consistent with our positions internationally on cross-border crime, on AML/CFT protocols and our treaty obligations,” Nandlall told reporters at the conclusion of the hearings on Wednesday afternoon.

“It was outlined also how the government had to severe relations that they had with the Mohameds…and it was after that and only in the year 2025 that the Mohameds (Azruddin) became political and started to attack the government,” Nandlall further told reporters.

On June 11, 2024, the Mohameds along with their businesses were sanctioned by the US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) for large-scale corruption, including gold smuggling, money laundering, and bribery, which involved avoiding over $50 million in taxes for the Guyanese Government.

Then the following year, Azruddin announced his political aspirations and launched a political party called We Invest in Nationhood (WIIN) to contest the 2025 general and regional elections.

In this regard, Nandlall contended that the argument of presumed bias is absurd, submitting that the extradition process is a statutory one.

“That can’t be the law of any country [because] politics would become a safe refuge for anybody who wants to defeat an extradition process by simply jumping into the political realm and start to oppose the government of the day and then claim that the government is bias against them…that is absurd,” he posited.

Moreover, Nandlall contended that “the law doesn’t change because I may be biased”.

“I have to advice based upon the law and there is no evidence that they showed, that they could have produced, to show that we would have acted differently had it been someone else,” he added.

The Mohameds were represented by Attorneys Siand Dhurjon, Roysdale Forde and Damian Da Silva.

The State was represented by the Attorney General along with Trinidadian Senior Counsel Douglas Mendes and Attorney Clay Hackett.

Meanwhile, the substantive extradition proceedings before Magistrate Judy Latchman continues on February 5 and 6 at the Georgetown Magistrates’ Courts.

The extradition of Mohameds is being sought under the Guyana–United Kingdom extradition treaty, which continues to operate in Guyana pursuant to Section 4(1)(a) of the Fugitive Offenders Act, Cap. 10:04, as amended by Act No. 10 of 2024. The extradition request was formally submitted by the US Government on October 30, 2025.

The father-son duo have been indicted by a grand jury in the US District Court for the Southern District of Florida on 11 criminal charges ranging from wire fraud and mail fraud to money laundering, primarily connected to the export of gold to the US by their company, Mohamed’s Enterprises.

If convicted, most charges carry a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison and fines of up to US$250,000, while the money laundering charge carries a fine of US$500,000 or the value of the laundered property.

The indictment follows sanctions imposed over a year ago by the US Government on the Mohameds, their businesses and the then Home Affairs Ministry Permanent Secretary (PS) Mae Thomas in relation to the same allegations.

The sanctions are related to the evasion of taxes on gold exports, with the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) noting that between 2019 and 2023, Mohamed’s Enterprise omitted more than 10,000 kilograms of gold from import and export declarations and avoided paying more than US$50 million in duty taxes to the Government of Guyana.