Mohameds extradition committal hearing moves forward as first witness testifies

Jan 07, 2026 News

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(Kaieteur News) – The extradition committal proceedings involving father and son, Nazar and Azruddin Mohamed, officially commenced on Tuesday at the Georgetown Magistrates’ Court after Principal Magistrate Judy Latchman once again rejected defence applications to stay the matter due to pending High Court proceedings.

Despite repeated submissions by defence attorneys seeking a stay on the grounds of unresolved constitutional issues and a recently filed judicial review alleging bias and lack of authority to proceed, the magistrate firmly dismissed the arguments and called the first prosecution witness.

The proceedings, which lasted approximately three hours, saw Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Sharon Roopchand-Edwards taking the stand as the prosecution’s first witness. She testified that she was the first official to become aware of the United States’ request to extradite the Mohameds. The defence raised multiple objections to her testimony and to the diplomatic documents presented, arguing that the documents were not uniquely marked and questioning their validity. However, the magistrate admitted the documents into evidence, assigning her own identifiers for the court’s record.

Before evidence was led, the defence argued that allowing the extradition proceedings to continue would result in a “miscarriage of justice” unless clarity was first obtained on the constitutional matters before the High Court. They contended that the extradition process should not proceed while those issues remained unresolved. However, lead prosecutor, Jamaican attorney Terrence Williams SC, challenged the timing of the application, suggesting it was a deliberate attempt to delay the proceedings. “It is to frustrate the extradition hearing,” he said. He told the court that the applications could proceed concurrently with the extradition process and that the defence would have opportunities to raise further challenges after the committal stage.

Magistrate Latchman agreed with the prosecution and refused the stay, directing that the first witness be called. Immediately after the ruling, defence attorney Roysdale Forde SC rose to address the court, stating that the defence had not received a list of corresponding local offences allegedly committed by his clients. “For the first time, we raised the fact that we were not in receipt of the local charges,” Forde said, noting that the court had conceded such information was required, even though the first witness had already been called.

However, Williams responded that it is not customary in the Caribbean to disclose local offences at the commencement of extradition proceedings. It is not a practice in the Caribbean for you to make a list of the local offences before the proceedings start.  The law of Guyana is that the authority to proceed must be expressed in terms of the offences in the requesting state that is the US offences,” he said. Nonetheless, Williams outlined eight corresponding offences, including: conspiracy to commit misdemeanor, conspiracy to commit a felony, computer related fraud, obtaining by false pretense, inducing persons by false pretense, forging of public documents, false declarations and money laundering.

When Forde attempted to respond further, the magistrate visibly frustrated intervened sharply, stating, “Mr Forde, I have ruled. Let’s not have a kangaroo court at this time. Prosecutor, called the first witness.”

First witness testifies

Roopchand-Edwards, testified that she was the first official to become aware of the United States’ request for the extradition of the Mohameds. She explained that on October 30, 2025, she received a package containing diplomatic correspondence identified as Diplomatic Note No. 417, which initiated the extradition request. After reviewing the documents, she forwarded them to Minister of Home Affairs, Onidge Waldron, which she said was standard procedure. “Once I confirmed the nature of the documents…the documents were immediately delivered to Minister of Home Affairs Oneidge Waldron,” she said. She testified that she observed the minister’s signature authorising the request but acknowledged that she was unaware whether any alterations were made to the documents after they were handed over.

Defence attorneys raised multiple objections to the admission of the diplomatic documents, challenging their identification, marking, and chain of custody. Attorney Siand Dhurjon argued that Roopchand-Edwards’ statement did not reference the authority to proceed and that she lacked sufficient identifying features to authenticate the documents.  He claimed that the witness is not to alter the authority to proceed stating that there is no mention of the authority to proceed in statement of Roopchand-Edwards.

Further objections were raised by defence attorneys concerning the identification and chain of custody of the documents, with arguments that the evidence amounted to hearsay and that the witness had not seen the documents again after handing them to the minister. “They have to at least, mark the document, general appearance is not enough,” he said.

Roopchand-Edwards maintained that she was familiar with Minister Waldron’s signature and could identify the documents based on several features, including the ribbon colour, the United States State Department seal, and the U.S. Secretary of State’s signature.  However, the magistrate ruled that the issues raised went to the weight of the evidence, not its admissibility, and allowed the documents to remain on record. At that time, the magistrate suspended the evidence and adjourned the matter until Thursday for continuation. Speaking to the media afterward, Williams said the prosecution expects between three and five witnesses to testify in support of the extradition request.

Dhurjon for his part expressed concern over the nature of the evidence, stating that it consisted entirely of documents. “All of the evidence against the Mohameds at this stage are strictly papers.  We will not be able to question or cross examine or test the veracity of any of these witnesses many of whom are abroad, some of whom are local and anonymous,” he said.

Dhurjon added: “In this case, we will say that those procedures were not complied with and we made those submissions, and it reached a tempo when I was so frustrated, I had to say that, not even in a cuss case, not even in a trivial narcotics case, would this be permissible.  Why is the prosecution asking the court to permit, in this case, paperwork evidence where the chain of custody is broken, the witness gave away the paperwork, never saw it again, and comes here in court for the first time to identify it, no unique identifying features. So, we were very concerned.”

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• committal hearing, extradition, Judy Latchman, Mohameds, Roysdale Forde, Terrence Williams

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