Has President Ramotar given encouragement to Islamic terrorism?
The world famous movie director, Roman Polanski, is under an international arrest warrant issued by the US for sodomy committed against a 13-year-old girl in California in 1977. Polanski turned up in Switzerland where he was arrested. He successfully fought the warrant.
Aware of which country he must travel to, Polanski is currently in Poland where the warrant was presented to the Polish authorities who questioned Mr. Polanski, but released him. If there is an international extradition request why then did Polanski travel to Poland? Because he knew he could avoid extradition.
A similar situation can develop here, but in the area of Islamic terrorism, based on Guyana President’s attitude to the Nandlall tape. For this reason, the US Department of Homeland Security should dispatch a high official with urgency, to speak to Mr. Ramotar. Based on how Mr. Ramotar is treating the tape scandal, then it could encourage Islamic terrorists to see Guyana as a country from which it will not be easy to be extradited.
In plain, simple, lucid language, the President of Guyana publicly said that his first concern is not the contents of the tape, but the illegal recording of Nandlall’s conversation. “…The case is that he was illegally taped…that (the taping) was done illegally…that is the first point we must deal with.”
This is an immoral attitude to adopt in a case, whereby the Minister charged with preserving the rule of law admits that there will be an attack on Kaieteur News and that innocent people may get hurt. Yet the President is concerned firstly not with the evil content of the conversation, but with the “illegal” way it was obtained.
We will come to how Ramotar may have played into the hands of Islamic terrorists, but first a commonsensical example to prove how un-commonsensical is Ramotar. A man tells his friend that he is tired of killing women and wants to talk about his victims, the latest being a schoolgirl. The friend tapes him and goes to the police. The police then tell the friend that they cannot do anything, because he should not have recorded the confession without first telling the killer; it is illegal to do so.
In other words, the police cannot arrest a serial killer because his friend illegally recorded his murderous trail. What happens next is obvious even to a moron – the guy will go on to kill. This is exactly the situation in which President Ramotar has put Guyana, and his style has implications for Islamic terrorism. It is up to the Americans to act.
The record will show that one of the most wanted Islamic terrorists on the FBI list is from Guyana, Adnan Shukrijumah. Some speculate that Shukrijumah may not have left Guyana since the arrest warrant was issued by the FBI, but through an elaborate disguise mechanism may be dwelling among us.
A Guyanese was jailed for life in the US for Islamic terrorism, Abdul Kadir. Surely, one cannot be that naÏve to think that there aren’t Muslim fanatics in Guyana that would embrace the cause of ISIS and perpetuate terrorism from Guyana’s soil. My contention is that since the President is of the opinion that the illegal recording of a conversation takes precedence over the conversation itself, then this can lead to boldness among Islamic terrorists in Guyana.
The reasoning is simple. A Middle East figure masquerading as a businessman books into one of our hotels. Unaware that there is someone nearby, he speaks on his phone about a plot to commit horror in the US. The bystander is shocked and records what he is saying with his smartphone. The bystander takes his item to the police. The terrorist calls in a lawyer, who tells the US Embassy that he cannot be extradited because in Guyana one cannot tape someone’s discourse illegally.
But the law is supreme; we cannot bend the law to suit our purpose, and maybe the lawyer is right. The lawyer then can have his day in court about illegal taping. But the police and government must look at content. There are other dimensions to look at, not only the illegally done recording, but the nature of the utterances.
If what is said in that conversation is so horrific and pregnant with bestial violence, then the law has to use the criminal code to arrest that person. Where in the world, is a person taped as saying they have plans to harm the US President and that person is not arrested? Where in the world would that happen except Guyana? President Ramotar is sailing in dangerous waters.
