Testifying against Simels was not part of the deal

Mar 20, 2009 News

– Roger Khan’s attorney

Robert Simels

Roger Khan

By Dale Andrews
Diarmuid White, the United States attorney who brokered a plea bargain deal for confessed Guyanese drug trafficker, Shaheed ‘Roger’ Khan, said that it is unlikely that his client will testify in the trial of Robert Simels.
Simels, Khan’s former lead attorney, is facing charges of obstruction, following a taped conversation in which he allegedly indicated an interest in harming one of the witnesses in the drug trafficking trial of the Guyanese drug king.

Speaking with this newspaper yesterday, White said that testifying in the Robert Simels trial was not a part of the plea bargaining deal, which was reached earlier this week with US Prosecutors.
“Cooperation (in the Simels case) was not part of the plea bargaining deal. Theoretically, prosecutors could subpoena him but that is highly unlikely,” the attorney told Kaieteur News, without giving further details.
Khan on Monday entered a guilty plea on all the charges against him, including 18 counts of drug trafficking and the 1994 gun running charges in Vermont, as well as witness tampering, in exchange for a 15-year sentence.

White, who was a part of the Simels-led team of lawyers representing Khan in the initial stages of the trial, took over the lead role following Simels’s forced withdrawal for witness tampering in early September last year.
Although Khan had the option of a plea bargaining at the beginning of his trial, negotiations for the recently agreed deal only commenced in earnest three weeks ago, according to Diarmuid White.
Simels declined to comment on the deal when contacted by this newspaper on Wednesday.
“I was not involved, I cannot comment on the matter,” Simels said.

Khan’s local attorney, Vic Puran, told this newspaper on Tuesday that following Simels’s forced withdrawal from the case, Khan’s new lead attorney, Diarmuid White, began the process of negotiating a deal that led to the eventual announcement.
Vic Puran disclosed that he had visited Khan on several occasions in the United States after he was taken there in 2006 to face the drug trafficking charges.
He said that when plea bargaining first came up in 2006, he had advised Khan that it might be the right way to go, pointing out that to go through with a trial may have been very costly.

However, there were some initial hiccups then as the prosecution appeared not to be too interested.
According to the lawyer, the US Prosecutors had demanded that Khan tell them ‘everything’ they wanted to know in exchange for a minimum 20-year sentence.
This deal went nowhere, according to Puran.
Meanwhile, Judge Dora Irrizarry, the presiding judge in the case, will rule on the deal shortly. She must first study the pre-sentencing report.
She can also refuse to accept the conditions of the plea bargaining, depending on a probation report, which is to be presented soon.

The judge told the court that if by the time the probation report is presented she could not in ‘clear conscience’ impose the 15-year sentence, then she could and would reject the agreed sentence.
Khan would then have the right to withdraw his guilty plea and proceed with a trial.
But White told Kaieteur News that the defense team is confident that Judge Irrizarry will accept the deal.
“The prospect of plea bargaining is always an underlying factor in any case… We anticipate that she will accept it. A lot of interests will be served,” the attorney explained.
He informed that it is very likely that Khan, who is in good spirits presently, will be deported at the end of any sentence imposed.

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