New York judge, Dora Irizarry yesterday flayed the defence team of Guyanese drug accused Roger Khan for using dilatory tactics to hold up the case and strongly urged it to get down to the serious business of preparing for the trial slated for October.
The judge’s comments came in her ruling in favour of a request from the US government for an extension of time to file a motion to quash subpoenas issued by the court at the request of lawyers for Guyanese drug accused. The US government had also requested that the court excuse all subpoena recipients from complying with the subpoenas until the motion to quash was decided. Both requests were granted.
In her ruling, Justice Irizarry said the US government’s request for an extension until June 4, 2008, to file the motion to quash various Rule 17 subpoenas issued by the court at the request of the defence was granted for good cause. “The court is greatly disturbed that defence counsel waited until just a few days before the return date — May 22, 2008 — to serve the subpoenas when the court signed them and returned them to defence counsel on April 28, 2008. Such dilatory tactics are inexcusable and will not be tolerated,” Justice Irizarry said in her ruling seen by this newspaper.
She said the court expected the defence counsel to proceed expeditiously with pretrial matters “because the trial in this matter will proceed as previously scheduled”.
In its request for an extension of the time to respond to the subpoenas, the US government had written to the court pointing out that over the last week it had been contacted by numerous federal agencies that had recently received subpoenas from the defence. These agencies included the State Depart-ment, the United States Marshals Service, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Drug Enforcement Adminis-tration, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Bureau of Prisons, and the Department of Homeland Security, as well as Knigh-tbridge Mortgage Bankers. According to the US government, the subpoenas were dated April 28, 2008 with a return date of May 22, 2008. However, most of the subpoenas were served last week, and some were served as late as May 20, two days before the return date. “The government intends to file a motion to quash on behalf of each of these federal agencies and Knightbridge Mortgage Bankers. However, we continue to be contacted by agencies who have received subpoenas. In an effort to ensure that we include all relevant subpoenas in our omnibus motion, and to give the government and the agencies at issue adequate time to respond to subpoenas that were just received, we request two weeks, until June 4, 2008, to file the motion to quash,” the US government said through Benton Campbell, United States Attorney. Additionally, the US government requested that the court excuse all subpoena recipients from complying with the subpoenas until the motion to quash was decided.
Khan is indicted for conspiring to import cocaine into the US and on 18 superseding indictments, which include continuing a criminal organization.
