Arrest warrant issued

An arrest warrant was yesterday issued for Guyanese businessman Leon Paul Williams after he failed to appear before Chief Magistrate Sherman Mc Nicolls in the Port-of-Spain Eighth Magistrates’ Court. Williams, 40, faces extradition to the United States of America for cocaine trafficking.

Magistrate Mc Nicolls also ordered that Williams not be granted bail upon his arrest. Williams’ bailor, Althea Elizabeth Samuel, was also a no show in court and the magistrate ordered that the bail of $500,000 be forfeited. Williams was arrested on November 10, 2000, on a foreign extradition warrant for conspiring to traffick cocaine and trafficking cocaine between June 1993 and January 1997. The offences allegedly occurred in Washington DC. Williams was arrested at the Trinidad Hilton. The matter was subsequently called before Deputy Chief Magistrate Deborah Thomas-Felix. However, it was discontinued because the State wanted to introduce certain documents into evidence.

Williams was re-arrested on May 3, 2001, and the matter was called before Magistrate Mc Nicolls. He was originally granted bail with a surety of $750,000 which was later reduced to $500,000. The conditions of the bail were that he surrender his passport to the State, report to the Arima Police Station weekly, and that he did not go within half a mile of any airport or seaport. Williams last appeared in court in April of this year. He is represented by attorneys Desmond Allum, SC, and Rajiv Persad. David West, head of the Central Authority Department of the Attorney General’s Office, prosecutes for the State. The matter was adjourned to July 10.