Is OFAC politically neutral?

Apr 02, 2026 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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(Kaieteur News) – The law governing extradition between Guyana and the United States is not a modern bilateral treaty, but the inherited framework of the 1931 Extradition Treaty between the United Kingdom and the United States. This column does not accept the validity of that Treaty.

But it is a fact that both the governments of Guyana and the United States accept it as applicable to extradition requests. The said document is what is being used to seek the extradition of the Mohameds.

The 1931 Treaty contains a principle of enduring importance. That principle is that extradition is not to be granted for political offences or where the request is politically motivated. This prohibition is not a technical footnote. It is a foundational safeguard designed to prevent the criminal law from being weaponised for political ends.

It is against this legal backdrop that ongoing public commentary surrounding the extradition proceedings involving the Mohameds must be assessed. Outside the courtroom, assertions continue to circulate that the United States indictments were politically motivated and more pointedly, influenced by the local PPP/C government.

Notably, however, no evidence has been produced to substantiate these claims. In law, bare allegation is insufficient; the treaty’s protection is engaged only where political motivation can be demonstrated, not merely asserted. Yet, while the evidentiary threshold remains unmet by those claiming political motivations for the indictments, recent international developments may have inadvertently provided the Mohameds with a legal lifeline.

Consider the case of Delcy Rodríguez. In September 2018, the United States, acting through the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), placed her on its Specially Designated Nationals list. This is the same list that the Mohameds have found themselves on.

The justification at the time was that she was accused of playing a central role in undermining democratic institutions in Venezuela, particularly through her leadership of the Constituent Assembly and her association with the government of Nicolás Maduro. U.S. officials asserted that such figures were instrumental in consolidating what they described as authoritarian rule and electoral manipulation. These sanctions carried severe consequences. They involved asset freezes, financial isolation, and a prohibition on dealings with U.S. persons. They were grounded in the U.S. government’s stated position that Rodríguez’s conduct struck at the heart of democratic governance.

Fast forward to this past week and the things have now shifted dramatically. The United States has now lifted sanctions against Rodríguez, effectively restoring her ability to engage with U.S. institutions and signalling a recalibration of diplomatic relations. Crucially, this reversal has not followed any electoral transformation in Venezuela that would traditionally justify such a change. There has been no democratic reset that clearly negates the earlier allegations of institutional subversion.

This sequence of events raises an uncomfortable but unavoidable question: if the underlying conduct has not demonstrably changed, what has? The most plausible answer lies not in law, but in politics. Sanctions, it appears, may be imposed and removed within a framework that is responsive to shifting geopolitical priorities.

That observation does not invalidate the original sanctions imposed on Delcy Rodriguez. Nor does it prove that they were improperly imposed. However, it does suggest that OFAC, like any executive agency operating within the sphere of foreign policy, is not entirely insulated from political considerations. The Rodríguez episode illustrates that sanctions can function as instruments of diplomacy as well as instruments of accountability.

This is where the relevance to the Mohameds emerges. To be clear, the lifting of sanctions against Rodríguez does not establish that the indictments against the Mohameds are politically motivated. There may or may not be an evidentiary basis for such a conclusion, and courts tasked with applying the 1931 treaty will require far more than analogy or suspicion. The legal test is exacting, and rightly so.

But the Rodríguez case may nonetheless provide what can fairly be described as a political lifeline. It offers a contemporary example through which counsel might argue that U.S. enforcement mechanisms are capable of being influenced by political considerations. If sanctions grounded in allegations of democratic subversion can be lifted absent a clear change in underlying facts, then it becomes arguable, at least in theory, that other prosecutorial or enforcement decisions could also be shaped by broader strategic interests. Such an argument does not prove political contamination. It does, however, seek to raise a reasonable doubt about institutional impartiality, and in extradition law, that doubt can be significant. The prohibition on politically motivated extradition is not concerned with certainty alone; it is concerned with risk—the risk that an individual may be surrendered to face proceedings that are not purely judicial in character.

Ultimately, the courts will decide. They will do so on evidence, not conjecture, and within the strict confines of the treaty. But in the arena of public discourse, the Rodríguez decision has introduced a fresh line of argument. It is one that stops short of exoneration but presses insistently on the question of whether law and politics can ever be fully disentangled. That question now sits, uncomfortably, at the intersection of law, and the fate of the Mohameds.

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)

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• Extradition Treaty, Guyana andUnited States, OFAC, Peeping Tom, politically neutral

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