Dear Editor,
It seems that everything and anything connected with the drug trade in Guyana is a comedy of errors, a web of deceit and a cloak of subterfuge. For some reason, the natural course of justice is eerily suspended when the drug trade is involved. The latest fiasco is that of Tyreca Noble, the US citizen charged with trafficking almost two kilogrammes (kg) of cocaine last July. Ms Noble was somehow granted bail when it was common knowledge that she was a US citizen and her flight risk was apparent. Maybe the government will clarify whether a request for extradition has been made or will be made in light of Ms Noble’s conviction in absentia.
With respect to extradition, the 1931 Extradition Treaty between the US and the UK applies to Guyana. Following the decision of the Guyana court in the Barry Dataram case in December 2008 the government claimed that the extradition laws required modernization. The bottom line is that government should have challenged the decision. Nothing would have signalled a government’s commitment to the drug war more than an appeal of the decision. Instead, we heard of modernization, which given the sloth of the bureaucracy in Guyana and the crawling pace of confrontation against drug traffickers should safely take a decade to accomplish. By that time, our dear land of Guyana should be firmly established as a safe haven for drug kingpins.
The law in its current state in Guyana is sufficient to allow the extradition of alleged drug kingpins wanted by foreign courts. Article 3 subsection 24 of the 1933 treaty clearly established that “crimes or offences or attempted crimes or offences in connection with the traffic in dangerous drugs” are extraditable. Article 10 apparently was the basis for the court’s decision in Dataram’s case. Article 10 of the treaty reads: “If the individual claimed by one of the High Contracting Parties in pursuance of the present Treaty should be also claimed by one or several other Powers on account of other crimes or offences committed within their respective jurisdictions, his extradition shall be granted to the Power whose claim is earliest in date, unless such claim is waived.” The Fugitive Offenders Act of Guyana section 8(3) prohibits extradition of individuals from Guyana unless the receiving country ensures that they would not extradite those individuals to a third country for trial of any offence without the consent of the minister.
Article 10 clearly refers to an individual “claimed” and not to an individual already extradited. Article 10 specifically applies to situations where other nations apart from the nation parties to the treaty “claim” extradition of a fugitive in Guyana. The article simply provides a mechanism for determining competing demands by various nations for the same individual at the outset and not after the individual has already been extradited. Article 10 applies to pre-extradition, not post-extradition, and therefore the government should have appealed. There is no evidence that any court in any former British colony with the exception of Guyana has ever interpreted Article 10 of the 1931 Extradition Treaty in the manner of the Guyana court in the Dataram case.
Section 8(3) of the Fugitive Offenders Act of Guyana simply requires an arrangement between treaty parties to be satisfied to take effect. An arrangement could be signed between, for example, Guyana and the USA whereby the USA ratifies that it will not extradite to a third country those individuals received from Guyana by way of extradition proceedings. This basic agreement would satisfy the requirements of section 8(3). This is all that is required to fix the flaws in the extradition laws. The truth that the government is yet to acknowledge is that the existing legal framework is sufficient to achieve extradition with only minor modification as proposed.
The existing body of laws in Guyana is not an impediment to extradition as the forces in Guyana would want us to believe. It is actually extremely simple and most importantly it is solely a government decision. The government acting in the interest of the nation possesses competent authority to enter into an arrangement with a foreign power to satisfy the prerequisite of section 8(3) of the Fugitive Offenders Act of Guyana. This is not a decision for Parliament but one for the President and his government to make. There is no sidestepping this fact. This is the Government of Guyana’s decision. Any inaction, delay or obfuscation in fixing the extradition mechanism lies squarely and only at the feet of the government. An arrangement could be signed today and the extradition of fugitives could commence tomorrow under the existing laws. It is that fundamentally simple.
The recent evidence confirms that the power with the most claims to Guyanese fugitives (the USA) has no inclination to ship fugitive drug kingpins extradited to its shores to third countries for trial. It wants them in the USA to face the long arm of the law and the full might of the legal system of the USA. The cases of Roger Khan and Peter Morgan are convincing precedents for the Guyana government and the Guyana courts to consider. Even if the Guyana government was somehow worried about Bush’s tactics of sending terrorists to third nations for torture, it is evident that Obama not Bush is now in power; that policy has clearly changed and finally it had never applied to drug kingpins who happen to be the most wanted fugitives for extradition from Guyana. In fact, the Guyana government has cooperated in handing over terrorism suspects to the USA without any concerns about third country diversions but seemingly has a bewildering lethargy when it comes to turning over drug kingpins.
Yours faithfully,
(Name and address provided)
