Commissioner of Police Leslie James says the current hurricane season being experienced in Florida, United States has delayed the return of convicted drug lord Roger Khan to Guyana.
Khan was scheduled to be deported from a Florida detention centre on Thursday night but was not on the scheduled flight. Florida was hit by a storm on Wednesday as the U.S braces for hurricane Dorian.
“We are waiting his return…I can’t say when, I understand because of the hurricane that we have had in the Caribbean recently his arrival was a bit delayed,” the Police Commissioner told reporters on the sidelines of an event at Parfaite Harmonie, West Bank Demerara Friday.
The Top Cop said there will be no special protocols in place for when Khan returns.
“Mr Khan, just like a normal person will return under such circumstances…there is nothing special about Mr Khan.”
Khan was sentenced to 15 years imprisonment in the United States but served only ten years and was released early in July this year into the custody of the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) awaiting deportation to Guyana.
Khan was arrested in 2006 in Suriname in a sting operation that Surinamese Police said netted more than 200 kilograms of cocaine – the biggest cocaine haul in Suriname of that year.
On October 16, 2009, Khan was jailed for conspiracy to import cocaine into the US, witness tampering and illegal possession of a firearm.
Khan, who is alleged to have been the leader of the notorious ‘Phantom Squad’, was extradited immediately to the United States since he reportedly fled from that country several years before to avoid charges.
The Phantom Squad was said to be behind a number of notorious executions in the country.
These executions put an end to a dreaded crime wave which gripped the country after the February 23 jailbreak in 2002 in which five dangerous prisoners – Andrew Douglas, Dale Moore, Shawn Browne, Mark Fraser and Troy Dick – shot and stabbed their way out of the Camp Street prison in Georgetown.
