Suriname will not extradite Roger Khan
-- Prosecutor-General

And in another startling twist in the broiling Roger Khan saga, Suriname Prosecutor-General Subhas Punwasi said that among the 12 persons arrested in the major drugs bust here are Guyanese still in the Guyana Police Force or intelligence agencies here.

“From at least one of the other three Guyanese suspects I can confirm that he is an ex-policeman. The two others we believe are either in active police service or in the Guyanese intelligence agencies”, Punwasi told the `de Ware Tijd’ newspaper in Suriname.

Khan and three other Guyanese were among 12 people arrested in the biggest drug bust, which netted 213 kilos of cocaine, in the Dutch colony so far for this year, ‘de Ware Tijd’ reported.

The arrests by a joint Police SWAT-team and units of the Narcotics Brigade took place at two locations just outside downtown Paramaribo.

Mr. Punwasi yesterday confirmed to ‘de Ware Tijd’ that Khan is among the detainees.

According to sources, Paul Rodrigues and Sean Belfield, two ex-Guyanese cops, are among the detainees. The identity of the fourth Guyanese detained is still under investigation since he didn’t have identification papers and allegedly entered Suriname illegally.

The confirmation of Khan, Rodrigues and Belfield is as a result of documentation retrieved by the police when the men were caught.

Punwasi also confirmed that this was a Guyana-Suriname gang which was trafficking cocaine from Guyana to Suriname.

He told `de Ware Tijd’ that the Suriname authorities had been following the moves of this organisation for quite a while now “and when the time was right we hit them”.

According to Commissioner Mathoera-Hussainali, Head of the Judicial Department of the Suriname Police Force, the suspects did not resist arrest. More arrests were not ruled out, she said.

“This is a big case and we are still following some leads. We want to catch all the persons who are involved in this gang”, Mathoera-Hussainali told `de Ware Tijd’.

Punwasi categorically ruled out an extradition of the Guyanese suspects to either Guyana or the United States if these countries might seek their extradition.

“If Mr Khan and the other Guyanese detainees have violated Surinamese laws they will be prosecuted by a Surinamese court”, said the prosecutor.

The U.S. District Court, Eastern District of New York, unsealed an indictment on May 3 last, which charges that he conspired to import cocaine into the U.S. between January 2001 and March 2006.

Tom Walsh, Charge d’affaires at the U.S. Embassy in Suriname, speaking through Public Relations Officer Cliff Djamin, yesterday said the embassy up to then had not formally been notified of Khan’s arrest.

“So we can’t comment whether the United States will seek an extradition or not”, said Djamin.

Police made the arrests and the drug find Thursday at two different locations in the capital Paramaribo.

At the first house in a residential area a few minutes drive from downtown Paramaribo, 109 kilos of cocaine were seized by the police squads. Another 104 kilos of cocaine and an automatic gun were found when the police raided a house in Franchepane Straat, Zorg-en-Hoop, also in Paramaribo.

Initially, six Surinamese nationals and one Guyanese were arrested and the other five were held as the investigation progressed.

If found guilty, the suspects face a jail term of up to 18 years. “This is a major case and we will go for the highest sentence”, said Punwasi.

In addition to the cocaine, a small quantity of crack-cocaine was also found, Mathoera-Hussainali said.

Police in Guyana issued wanted bulletins for Khan and Rodrigues and were looking for Khan in connection with the theft of 30 AK-47 rifles from the Guyana Defence Force Camp Ayanganna headquarters in Georgetown earlier this year.

Since then Khan and several other persons connected to him were on the run and rumours were that they went into hiding in Suriname.

Mathoera-Hussainali and Punwasi said the Suriname police were not looking for Khan in particular, but had acted on information the Police Force had received about drug related activities of certain persons.

“When we made the bust at the first place, information led us to the second address. It was at this place that we arrested Mr Khan and the other Guyanese”, Punwasi told `de Ware Tijd’.

Although Khan was not at the address where the cocaine was actually found, police have enough information to link him to this case, said the prosecutor.

Asked whether Guyanese Police officers had travelled to Suriname to assist in the confirmation of the identity of Khan and his other accomplices, Punwasi said no, and that the Surinamese Police have made no contact with their counterparts here, as this is a Suriname case.

He, however, did not rule out the possibility of making contact at a later stage.

The Guyana Chronicle learnt that in addition to Suriname wanting to prosecute Khan, there may be a glitch in the U.S. seeking to extradite him because of the absence of an extradition treaty between the two countries.

An arrangement exists with Interpol, the international police organisation, and speculation is that any move to remove Khan may be through that avenue.

Meanwhile, one of Khan’s two attorneys here, Glenn Hanoman travelled to Suriname early yesterday in the hope of meeting his client.

Reports last night were that he had not yet met Khan

Saturday, June 17, 2006