Marcus Bisram’s lawyer, US prosecutors clash over extradition treaty

The lawyer for US-based Guyanese murder accused Marcus Brian Bisram has argued that the 1931 treaty between the US and the United Kingdom, which the prosecution has relied on for his extradition to Guyana, had been called into doubt by the Supreme Court here.

Bisram and several others are facing charges over the killing of Number 70 Village carpenter Faiyaz Narinedatt. Bisram was nabbed in the US in July and is now on remand facing extradition.

Responding to the US government’s submission to Magistrate Judge Peggy Kuo’s court, Bisram’s lawyer, Mario F. Gallucci, pointed out that in 1931 Guyana was a territory of the United Kingdom but gained independence in 1966 and although the treaty has been honoured to some degree its “full force and effect” has been called into doubt by Guyana’s Supreme Court.

He pointed out that the issue lies in whether the treaty is contradicted by the Fugitive Offenders Act 1988 which was discussed in the matter of now convicted drug trafficker Barry Dataram. It was argued that while the Guyanese legislature acknowledged the issue by promulgating the Fugitive Offenders Amendment Act of 2009, the act is not binding on the courts of the United States and therefore the issue remains open and it cannot be said that the treaty remains in “full force and effect.”

The case that Gallucci referred to was the Guyana Full Court ruling in 2008 that exposed a lacuna in the local law and had stalled attempts to extradite Dataram. Dataram was wanted by US authorities for drug trafficking but was never extradited. He was jailed in Guyana earlier this year for drug trafficking in a separate case.

The extradition treaty between the UK and the US, containing a proviso that allowed the US to extradite Guyanese nationals to third countries, clashed with the