THE question before the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) this past week, in the matter of the Mohameds’ extradition, is not a referendum on Guyana’s treaty obligations. It is a straightforward question: does the Government of Guyana have a legal duty to honour a serious and credible extradition request from a treaty partner, or not?
Guyanese went to the polls on Sept. 6, 2025. The PPP/C won hands down. On October 6, 2025, the US federal grand jury in the Southern District of Florida unsealed an indictment of Azruddin and Nazar Mohamed. It spelt out 11 serious charges against the Mohameds, including conspiracy, mail and wire fraud, and money laundering. On Oct. 30, the US government submitted a formal extradition request for Azruddin and Nazar Mohamed.
On receiving that request, the Minister of Home Affairs, Oneidge Walrond, issued an Authority to Proceed (ATP) under the Fugitive Offenders Act. That ATP activated domestic committal proceedings, which landed before Magistrate Judy Latchman.
The Mohameds responded by asking the High Court to quash the ATP on the grounds of bias. They lost. They appealed and lost again. They then went to the CCJ, which granted an interim stay of the committal proceedings while it hears their challenge. This is not the start of a legal drama; it is the end of the legal rope.
This case is not about whether the Government of Guyana likes or dislikes the Mohameds; That’s irrelevant. The Mohameds and their lawyers are working hard to invert reality by casting the CCJ hearings as a chapter in a political feud between the governing party and Azruddin Mohamed.
Consider the timing. The Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned the Mohameds in June 2024. In early March 2025, Azruddin and his father quietly flew to Barbados for closed-door meetings with unknown shadow figures. The Mohameds have never publicly disclosed who they met or what advice they were given. What we do know is that two and a half months later, Azruddin stepped onto the political stage, announcing his bid for President.
Less than a year after US sanctions, before the grand jury indictment was unsealed and before the extradition request, the Mohameds were already positioning themselves for the highest office in the land. They did not join politics to play an amusing game of ping-pong with President Irfaan Ali and the People’s Progressive Party/Civic.
It is hard to ignore the obvious question: was a strategy hatched in a Bridgetown hotel room to bring the Mohameds exactly to this point, where they could cloak themselves in the language of political persecution and try to strangle the inevitable extradition process that would follow the OFAC sanctions like night follows day, while pretending they are mere victims rather than the authors of their own conduct?
Guyana’s extradition system is governed by the Fugitive Offenders Act. The authority for incoming requests is the Minister of Home Affairs, who issues an ATP so long as all legal requirements are met. The Office of the DPP works with the Ministers of Home Affairs and Foreign Affairs to prepare the case. A Magistrate then conducts committal proceedings to determine whether the evidence and dual-criminality requirements are satisfied.
Ultimately, it is the judiciary, not the executive, that decides whether, in this case, the Mohameds are to be committed for surrender, with the higher courts acting as a further constitutional buffer. Extradition in Guyana is not subject to the whims of a back‑room domino game; it is a multi-stage legal process shaped by statute and treaty.
The attack on Minister Walrond’s ATP is an attack on the very idea that an elected government can discharge its treaty obligations without being accused of bias. In extradition law, the executive is expected to receive and process requests precisely because they arise from international commitments; that is why the Fugitive Offenders Act assigns this role to the Minister of Home Affairs and recognises that extradition lands at the intersection of foreign policy and criminal justice.
To describe the ATP as “politically infected” simply because ministers have expressed views about sanctions or corruption would be to say that no democratic government is ever capable of enforcing serious allegations against powerful citizens.
Much has been made by the Mohameds’ spin of a CCJ judge admonishing the Attorney General over his public remarks. Judicial irritation is part of the adversarial process, not evidence of institutional disgrace. The CCJ maintained only an interim stay of the committal process while upholding that extradition proceedings must move with urgency and without unnecessary delay.
The true test of a legal system is not how it treats the powerful when serious allegations arise. In this case, the Government of Guyana has followed the path laid down by Parliament: receive the request, issue an ATP where the statutory criteria are met, and leave it to the courts to decide whether the evidence and safeguards justify surrender. That’s not persecution; it is precisely what the rule of law demands in a small state that wishes to be taken seriously in the international system.
DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Guyana National Newspapers Limited.
