Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

A 48-year-old man, want­ed in the Unit­ed States for smug­gling over US$1 mil­lion in co­caine and hero­in in­to that coun­try, will re­main in T&T for al­most two months while he seeks to mount a fi­nal le­gal chal­lenge over his pro­posed ex­tra­di­tion.

Dur­ing a hear­ing at the Hall of Jus­tice, yes­ter­day morn­ing, ap­pel­late judges Mark Mo­hammed, Pe­ter Ra­jku­mar, and Ron­nie Boodoos­ingh re­fused Shurlan “Chalkie” Gup­py con­di­tion­al leave to ap­peal to the Privy Coun­cil.

De­spite the pan­el’s de­ci­sion, Se­nior Coun­sel Ravi Ra­j­coomar, who rep­re­sent­ed the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al, gave an un­der­tak­ing that Gup­py would not be ex­tra­dit­ed in the next 56 days while his lawyers make a spe­cial leave ap­pli­ca­tion di­rect­ly to the Unit­ed King­dom-based ap­pel­late court.

Gup­py’s lawyers will have to con­vince the British Law Lords that Gup­py’s case rais­es an ar­guable point of law or a point of gen­er­al pub­lic im­por­tance.

In the event that they are al­lowed to pur­sue the ap­peal, they will face an up­hill task in seek­ing to win it (the ap­peal) as the Privy Coun­cil on­ly over­turns con­cur­rent find­ings of the lo­cal courts in ex­cep­tion­al cir­cum­stances.

Gup­py is seek­ing to chal­lenge a de­ci­sion by the pan­el to dis­miss his ap­peal over his law­suit, which was pre­vi­ous­ly re­ject­ed by High Court Judge Ricky Rahim.

De­liv­er­ing a judg­ment late last month, the pan­el said that their col­league could not be fault­ed for his han­dling of Gup­py’s case.

“It could not be said the judge was plain­ly wrong or erred in law,” Jus­tice Mo­hammed said.

Gup­py filed the law­suit af­ter act­ing Chief Mag­is­trate Chris­tine Charles ap­proved ex­tra­di­tion pro­ceed­ings brought by the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al, on be­half of the US, on Ju­ly 31, last year.

Jus­tice Mo­hammed not­ed that he and his col­leagues were will­ing to up­hold an ap­pli­ca­tion from the AG’s Of­fice to strike out the ap­peal based on Gup­py’s lawyers fail­ing to file a record of ap­peal with­in the stip­u­lat­ed pe­ri­od.

How­ev­er, de­spite the pro­ce­dur­al is­sue, they still went on to con­sid­er the three grounds of ap­peal raised by Gup­py’s le­gal team and re­ject­ed them.

They not­ed that their col­league was right to dis­miss Gup­py’s claim that he was en­trapped by US law en­force­ment agents.

They stat­ed that while there was ev­i­dence that US en­force­ment agents paid him US$5,000 for a pre­vi­ous ship­ment of drugs, there was al­so ev­i­dence that he was al­leged­ly in­volved in drug traf­fick­ing be­fore the pay­ment was made in 2020.

“These were con­clu­sions rea­son­ably open to the judge based on the ma­te­r­i­al be­fore him,” Jus­tice Mo­hammed said.

Jus­tice Ra­jku­mar point­ed out that while Gup­py could re­ly on en­trap­ment as a de­fence in the US, such was not ap­plic­a­ble in T&T.

“Would he not be in a bet­ter po­si­tion?” Jus­tice Ra­jku­mar asked.

The judges al­so ruled that their col­league was al­so en­ti­tled to re­ject Gup­py’s claim that the US act­ed in bad faith by fail­ing to pros­e­cute his wife and fa­ther-in-law, who are US cit­i­zens, al­though there was ev­i­dence of them par­tic­i­pat­ing in the same crim­i­nal con­duct he is ac­cused of.

“There is no ev­i­dence of dif­fer­en­tial treat­ment by cit­i­zen­ship,” Jus­tice Mo­hammed said.

They found no mer­it in Gup­py’s claim that his ex­tra­di­tion dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly af­fect­ed his con­sti­tu­tion­al right to fam­i­ly life based on the im­pact on his son, who has autism.

They not­ed that his son, who moved from the US to live with him in Trinidad, would have more ac­cess to spe­cialised ed­u­ca­tion pro­grammes for his med­ical con­di­tion if he re­turned to live with his moth­er in the US.

“It is in the best in­ter­est of the child to re­turn to the US,” Jus­tice Mo­hammed said.

As part of their de­ci­sion, the judges or­dered Gup­py to pay the state al­most $100,000 in le­gal costs for de­fend­ing his ap­peal.

Gup­py is want­ed in the US for a se­ries of charges, in­clud­ing con­spir­a­cy to dis­trib­ute hero­in and co­caine, at­tempt­ed dis­tri­b­u­tion, and dis­tri­b­u­tion of nar­cotics in the East­ern Dis­trict of Penn­syl­va­nia.