The Caribbean Court of Justice is scheduled to hand down its final judgment on Wednesday, deciding whether extradition proceedings against Guyanese businessman Nazar Mohamed and his son, Opposition Leader Azruddin Mohamed, can lawfully continue. The ruling, sought by the United States government, will settle a legal dispute that has run for nine months and drawn considerable attention in Guyana. The court's judgment will be broadcast publicly via livestream, allowing the public direct access to proceedings that have played out largely behind closed doors until now.

The extradition request originated in October 2025, when the United States formally sought the transfer of both men. An 11 count criminal indictment filed in the Southern District of Florida accuses father and son of conspiracy, mail fraud, wire fraud and money laundering connected to their gold trading businesses. Guyana's Minister of Home Affairs responded by issuing an Authority to Proceed, a decision that triggered magisterial arrest warrants and set the domestic legal process in motion.

The Mohameds did not accept the minister's authorisation without challenge. In December 2025 they began judicial review proceedings, arguing that the Authority to Proceed was invalid and should instead be issued by an official untainted by political bias. Their case fared poorly in the domestic courts. The High Court dismissed the claims in February 2026, and the Court of Appeal followed suit in March, declining to stay the extradition process on either occasion.

That refusal did not end matters. The case moved to the Caribbean Court of Justice, the region's apex tribunal, which granted an interim stay of the magisterial committal proceedings in March 2026. The court cited the urgency of the issues raised, and the stay has effectively frozen the extradition process while the substantive appeal was heard.

Arguments were presented before the CCJ in April. Lawyers for the Mohameds maintained that the extradition authorisation was fundamentally flawed, repeating their contention that the process had been compromised by political prejudice. The Attorney General's office rejected this characterisation, telling the court that the judicial challenge amounted to an abuse of process intended to delay extradition rather than a genuine legal grievance. The state's lawyers pointed to the Court of Appeal's earlier finding that the defence case lacked merit, arguing this should weigh against the Mohameds at the regional level.

Wednesday's ruling will not touch on the guilt or innocence of either man with respect to the American charges. The CCJ's task is narrower: to assess whether the domestic procedures used to authorise the extradition were lawful. That distinction matters, since a finding in the Mohameds' favour would not clear them of the underlying allegations, only send the authorisation process back for correction.

Two outcomes are possible. Should the CCJ side with the state, the interim stay will lift and the committal hearings before the magistrate's court will resume without delay, moving the case a step closer to an actual extradition. Should the court instead find in favour of the Mohameds, the Authority to Proceed issued by the Minister of Home Affairs would likely be set aside, forcing the process to begin again under different auspices.

Whatever the outcome, the ruling carries a note of finality that earlier decisions lacked. As the court of last resort in the region, the CCJ's judgment cannot be appealed further within the Caribbean legal system, bringing a definitive close to a standoff that has tested the boundaries between regional judicial independence, domestic politics and Guyana's treaty obligations to the United States. For a case that has moved through three courts in under a year, Wednesday marks the point at which the legal question, if not the underlying criminal one, is finally answered.

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