Latest update November 26th, 2024 1:00 AM
Shift seen in extraditions between US, Guyana
By Leonard Gildarie
Early last year, the Government of Guyana requested authorities in the US to extradite one of their citizens.
Marcus Bisram is fighting his extradition in the US
Marcus Bisram was a Guyana-born man who went to the US and became a citizen there. He reportedly later became well-off and journeyed often to Guyana where he was involved in community and other charity works, and a number of the projects with the police.
In late 2016, he was accused of ordering a number of men at a party he was hosting in Berbice to beat up a carpenter, Faiyaz Narinedatt.
Narinedatt, according to the police, reportedly, rejected Bisram’s sexual advances.
The carpenter was later taken elsewhere, dumped and run over to make it look like a hit-and-run.
However, Narinedatt’s family was not buying the story and complained to police. A probe resulted in five men being charged for murder.
Bisram, too, was implicated and Government filed an extradition request to the US government for the businessman to be sent back.
The case would have been highly unusual, as it is not often that the US has sent one of its citizens to Guyana, never mind that Bisram was a born-Guyanese.
Troy Thomas was recently ordered to be extradited to the US.
Late last year, a New York court ruled that Bisram, who had been arrested and in custody, is extraditable but the final decision is now up to the Secretary of State.
Bisram filed habeas corpus proceedings but lost the matter a few weeks ago. He has appealed.
On the flip side of that, quite a number of Guyanese has been extradited to the US.
Recently, Troy Thomas, who fled to Guyana via Canada for the 2011 murder of fellow Guyanese, Keith Frank, lost his bid to block the extradition.
He had been living here for the past seven years.
Recently, also, another Guyanese, Shervington ‘Big Head’ Lovell waived rights and opted to be sent to the US from Jamaica for narco trafficking. He had been arrested in Jamaica.
Last week, outgoing US ambassador, Perry Holloway, was questioned about whether the Bisram case especially is a shift of the extradition relations with the US which seem more than one sided.
Holloway, whose tenure began in late 2015, said that from experience, one of the tools to tackle transnational crime is extradition.
Of course, Holloway quickly pointed out, it does not explain why the US is sending Guyanese back.
The extradition arrangement was put to the test in the case of Bisram when his US lawyers argued that Guyana and the US do not have a treaty.
However, US attorneys were successful in their arguments that a standing bilateral agreement between the US and Britain still courts although Guyana, as a former colony, is now independent.
Former US ambassador to Guyana, Perry Holloway
With the US court, in essence, agreeing that the bilateral arrangement with Britain is in effect, it means that Guyana can request more extraditions, as the US indeed seemed to have softened its stance.
According to Holloway, the US had wanted assurance that there is a true bilateral treaty.
Significant efforts had been made at the embassy level.
However, according to the ambassador, there must be an acknowledgment that the cases would take a long time at the court level.
He pointed to both Bisram and Thomas’s case. The appeals are nearing an end and the extradition could happen soon, he said.
According to Holloway, the developments should send a clear message, that not everyone can believe that they would get away with crimes…Some would, but not forever.
He warned that the US, too, must be assured that there will be a fair trial in the country where it is extraditing someone, or else it won’t happen.
In fact, the extradition must also be done in a proper manner, for it to be considered.
The ambassador warned that more extraditions are a likelihood.
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