In a high-profile court hearing held in Guyana on Friday, 16 October 2026, opposition leader Azruddin Mohamed and two of his staff members have been granted bail, with each required to post GY$750,000 to secure their release. The trio faces three joint criminal charges: illegal possession of a .32 caliber pistol, unlawful possession of three matching rounds of ammunition, and attempting to pervert the course of justice by discharging a firearm near the residence of Senior Superintendent Prem Narine, head of the Police Special Branch and a key witness in ongoing extradition proceedings connected to the case.
According to court documents, the alleged offense of attempting to obstruct justice took place on 12 October 2026. Prosecutors claim that the firearm was discharged in the immediate area of Narine’s home, while Narine is preparing to testify in extradition proceedings targeting both Azruddin Mohamed and his father, Nazar Mohamed. The father-son pair are currently wanted by United States authorities on charges of money laundering and other financial crimes tied to their family-owned gold trading enterprise.
All three defendants — Mohamed, his driver Eugene Thorne, and videographer Mario Mohamed — entered formal not guilty pleas to all charges brought against them. A three-person defense team led by senior attorneys Siand Dhurjon, Damien Da Silva, and Roysdale Forde presented eight specific legal arguments to justify the grant of bail, which Magistrate Faith Mc Gusty ultimately accepted. The magistrate set bail at GY$250,000 for each individual charge, bringing the total bail amount per defendant to GY$750,000.
Among the key defense arguments that swayed the court were several procedural irregularities in the prosecution’s case. Defense attorneys highlighted that the firearm was allegedly discovered at the Kitty Police Station while Dhurjon was present on location, rather than during the initial search of Mohamed’s vehicle at the intersection of Vlissengen Road and Sandy Babb Street. They also noted that after the first search, a second police officer drove the vehicle back to the police station, creating a gap in chain of custody. Additionally, the charging documents incorrectly list Alexander Street as the location where the defendants were found in possession of the weapon and ammunition, rather than the original search location.
The defense also pointed out that prosecutors failed to provide the court with surveillance camera footage that would confirm the loud noise reported at the scene was in fact a gunshot, and that the discharge originated from Mohamed’s vehicle. The two sides also disagree on how many people were occupying the vehicle at the time of the incident. Finally, the defense emphasized that Mohamed is currently out on bail in a separate connected extradition case and has consistently complied with all existing bail requirements, a track record the magistrate took into consideration.
In addition to the bail sum, the court imposed a strict set of 10 bail conditions that all three defendants must follow leading up to their next court date, scheduled for 6 November 2026. All defendants are required to disclose their residential addresses to the court and notify authorities immediately if they change their place of residence. All passports and other travel documents must be surrendered to law enforcement; Mohamed has already handed over his travel documentation as part of his bail conditions in the ongoing extradition matter, while Thorne and Mario Mohamed were ordered to turn over theirs immediately. No applications for replacement travel documents will be permitted without explicit court approval, and none of the defendants are allowed to leave Guyana without formal permission from the court.
Further conditions require the defendants to provide current employment information and active telephone contact details, updating both the court and prosecution promptly if any contact information changes. They are barred from directly or indirectly contacting, threatening, intimidating, or attempting to influence any prosecution witnesses connected to the case, and are forbidden from obstructing or interfering with any prosecution work. All three defendants are required to report regularly to the Kitty Police Station as part of their bail terms.
The most stringent conditions relate directly to the witness in the case: defendants are not permitted any contact, through themselves or third-party agents, with Senior Superintendent Prem Narine or his immediate family members. They are also required to maintain a constant distance from Narine’s home and are completely barred from entering Barr Street between Vlissengen Road and Alexander Street, the residential block where Narine resides. Prosecutors had requested a three-week adjournment to complete disclosure of all evidence in the case, a request that was granted as proceedings move forward toward the November hearing.