Fran­cis Joseph

Any film pro­duc­er would want this sto­ry. A want­ed fugi­tive be­ing flown from Suri­name to Guyana, but the plane mys­te­ri­ous­ly lands at Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port. He is kept for hours at Pi­ar­co and then DEA agents put him on a plane and takes him to the Unit­ed States where he is want­ed on 18 drug charges. He then hires a bigshot, high-priced Man­hat­tan lawyer to rep­re­sent him. But that lawyer de­cides to tam­per with wit­ness­es in the tri­al. The bub­ble burst when the lawyer was wire­tapped and all hell broke loose. This week, both men were found guilty and faces be­tween 15 years to life in prison.

Sha­heed Roger Khan was tak­en from Suri­name and brought to Trinidad. While de­tained at Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port, Khan was tak­en by DEA of­fi­cers and flown to New York where he was want­ed, de­spite ef­forts from his Trinida­di­an at­tor­neys. In New York, he hired Man­hat­tan at­tor­ney, Robert Simels, as his de­fence coun­sel. Simels was as­sist­ed lo­cal­ly by at­tor­ney Odai Ramis­c­hand. But very soon, Simels found him­self in hot wa­ter, charged with plot­ting to kill, and tam­per­ing with eight wit­ness­es in Khan's case. On Thurs­day, Simels, 62, was found guilty in the Brook­lyn Fed­er­al Court, the same cour­t­house where Trinida­di­an Ka­reem Ibrahim and three Guyanese are await­ing tri­al on charges of plot­ting to blow up JFK In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port, New York, in 2007.

Simels and his as­so­ciate, Ari­enne Irv­ing, were found guilty on two counts of wit­ness tam­per­ing, and pos­sess­ing il­le­gal eaves­drop­ping equip­ment. In one taped con­ver­sa­tion with Sel­wyn Vaughn, a for­mer Khan em­ploy­ee turned fed­er­al wit­ness, Simels was heard sug­gest­ing a wit­ness might sud­den­ly get am­ne­sia if paid enough mon­ey. "That's a ter­ri­ble thing, but if it hap­pens, it hap­pens," Simels added. Lat­er in the same meet­ing, the lawyer stat­ed, "Ob­vi­ous­ly, any wit­ness you can elim­i­nate is a good thing." In an­oth­er dis­cus­sion about lo­cat­ing rel­a­tives of a wit­ness, Simels was record­ed telling the co­op­er­a­tor that Khan had in­struct­ed, "Don't kill the moth­er."

Khan had ini­tial­ly plead­ed not guilty to 18 counts of drug pos­ses­sion and drug dis­tri­b­u­tion charges, which al­leged that he im­port­ed, con­spired to im­port and dis­trib­ute, and pos­sessed co­caine for the pur­pose of dis­tri­b­u­tion on a num­ber of dates be­tween 2001 and 2006. He was al­so charged for be­ing part of an in­ter­na­tion­al dis­tri­b­u­tion net­work. In 1993, Khan was charged with pos­ses­sion of an il­le­gal firearm and am­mu­ni­tion and was grant­ed bail, but fled the US ju­ris­dic­tion. As the case un­fold­ed, there were some star­tling rev­e­la­tions. Court doc­u­ments sur­faced, fin­ger­ing Khan in al­most 200 mur­ders in Guyana. Khan has been fin­gered as hav­ing or­dered the ex­e­cu­tion of Don­ald Al­li­son, a box­ing coach of Agri­co­la; and De­ven­dra Per­saud, a busi­ness­man who had been fin­gered in the killing of a lo­cal pi­lot from Ogle. Al­li­son was named in a court doc­u­ment as be­ing the gun-run­ner for the lo­cal in­fa­mous 'Fine Man' gang, while Per­saud was sus­pect­ed of co­op­er­at­ing with the US Gov­ern­ment against Khan and oth­er lo­cal drug couri­ers.

The case against Khan

Spe­cial Agent Cas­san­dra Jack­son of the DEA, said it all. In her af­fi­davit to sup­port the charges against Khan, she told the court "Khan was ul­ti­mate­ly able to con­trol the co­caine in­dus­try in Guyana, in large part, be­cause he was backed by a para­mil­i­tary squad that would mur­der, threat­en and in­tim­i­date oth­ers at Khan's di­rec­tive. Khan's en­forcers com­mit­ted vi­o­lent acts and mur­ders on Khan's or­ders that were di­rect­ly in fur­ther­ance of Khan's drug traf­fick­ing con­spir­a­cy." Ac­cord­ing to Jack­son, the US Gov­ern­ment's case was to es­tab­lish that Khan was the leader of a vi­o­lent drug traf­fick­ing or­gan­i­sa­tion and that he and his co-con­spir­a­tors ob­tained large quan­ti­ties of co­caine and then im­port­ed the co­caine in­to the East­ern Dis­trict of New York and oth­er places for fur­ther dis­tri­b­u­tion.

It was while he was man­ag­ing his drug-smug­gling busi­ness in neigh­bour­ing Suri­name that he was caught. At home in Guyana, Khan seemed to en­joy a charmed ex­is­tence of im­mu­ni­ty from ar­rest and pros­e­cu­tion. He had many friends and as­so­ciates in Trinidad who helped his boom­ing trade. His mis­take, how­ev­er, was to en­ter Suri­name. There, his co­caine-con­struct­ed house of cards col­lapsed with his dra­mat­ic ar­rest in Para­mari­bo. Khan was flown out of Jo­hann Pen­gel In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port, Para­mari­bo, on a Suri­name Air­ways flight to Trinidad. He was then hand­ed over to im­mi­gra­tion au­thor­i­ties up­on ar­rival who then hand­ed him over to US of­fi­cials.

Less than 24 hours af­ter be­ing ex­pelled from Suri­name, Khan was ar­raigned at the Brook­lyn Fed­er­al Court in New York on June 30, 2006, on a charge of con­spir­ing to im­port co­caine and was or­dered to be de­tained at the Met­ro­pol­i­tan De­ten­tion Cen­tre�in Brook­lyn.

Khan's ar­rest showed the stark con­trast in the qual­i­ty of gov­er­nance be­tween the two states. Suri­name's Chan­drikaper­sad San­tokhi deemed Sha­heed Khan a threat to the na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty of Guyana and Suri­name and oth­er coun­tries, and linked him to plots to as­sas­si­nate gov­ern­ment and ju­di­cial of­fi­cials in that coun­try. Ac­cord­ing to San­tokhi, in­ter­na­tion­al agen­cies, in­clud­ing those in the USA, had been look­ing for him. On the oth­er hand, Guyana's Min­is­ter of Home Af­fairs at the time, Gail Tex­eira, for­mal­ly in­di­cat­ed to Suri­name that the gov­ern­ment had no in­ter­est in seek­ing Khan's re­turn at that time. Khan's crim­i­nal en­ter­prise was fi­nanced with dirty mon­ey earned from drug smug­gling. The US gov­ern­ment charged that a sig­nif­i­cant amount of the co­caine dis­patched by Khan went to the East­ern Dis­trict of New York for fur­ther dis­tri­b­u­tion. As an ex­am­ple, it cit­ed a Guyanese drug traf­fick­ing or­gan­i­sa­tion, the Queens Car­tel, based in Queens, New York, which it said was sup­plied by Khan and was said to have dis­trib­uted hun­dreds of kilo­grammes of co­caine.